Pharmaceutical packaging machine

An apparatus for making laminate based assemblies of a substantially imperforate material adhered to an adhesive side of a backing material for use as a medicine dispensing compress comprising:

• means for feeding a web of imperforate material into said apparatus;
• means for feeding a web of backing material into said apparatus, the backing material having a generally continuous layer of adhesive on one side whereby there will be exposed adhesive surrounding a patch applied to said backing material, which patch covers only a portion of said adhesive;
• a first roller and an applicator drum which engages said first roller, said web of imperforate material passes over said first roller and between said first roller and said applicator drum, at least one of said first roller and said applicator drum being surfaced with die cutting means for cutting a plurality of individual medicant patches from said web of imperforate material, at spaced intervals along said web of imperforate material, and of narrower dimension than the width of said web imperforate material, thereby leaving an offal portion, said patches each having a preselected shape;
• a vacuum means positioned between said applicator drum and said individual patches for holding the patches to said applicator drum;
• a stripper roller positioned adjacent said applicator drum, wherein said web of imperforate material is passed between said stripper roller and said applicator drum so that said stripper roller bends said offal portion away from said applicator drum to thereby separate said patches from said offal portion, said patches being retained on said applicator drum by said vacuum means;
• a pressure roll positioned adjacent said applicator drum, wherein said web of backing material is passed between said applicator drum and said pressure roll such that said adhesive side of said backing material faces said applicator drum, said pressure roll being located at a point spaced from said stripper roll in the direction of rotation of said applicator drum, and being located so as to cause said backing material adhesive surface to engage said patches on said applicator drum, and wherein said backing material web is withdrawn from between said applicator drum and said pressure roll generally tangentially of said applicator drum to gradually lift said patches off said applicator drum as they adhere to said backing material web;
• means for continually moving said backing layer as said applicator drum is rotated to insure a space between said patches as applied to said web of backing material, thereby insuring that adhesive on said backing material will remain exposed at least between said patches;
• means for applying a cover layer covering said patches to remaining exposed portions of the adhesive side of said backing material web over each of said patches, whereby each of said patches is sandwiched between said backing material web and said cover layer means without the need to apply adhesive to said cover layer or to said patch;
• and
• means for cutting a plurality of individual base units in said backing material web with one of said patches positioned within each of said base units, that portion of said backing material web disposed outside of said base units defining an offal portion of said backing material web.