A shared word that quietly changes meaning between pages fails the reader who follows a link. The cost is a “primary pack” that sometimes means the carton and sometimes means the dose container.
Each term below means only what the linked guide says. This is not a legal glossary and not a pharmacopoeia.
Layers and forms
Primary pack, secondary pack and tertiary pack are fixed on Primary, secondary and tertiary packaging. Overwrap is film around the carton, fixed on What pharmaceutical overwrapping does and does not do. Blister and bottle are compared on Blister and bottle packaging compared. Sachet and stick pack are compared on Sachet and stick pack compared.
System words
Governance follows Systems thinking in healthcare. Access follows Access to medicines is more than a price. Availability keeps packaging defects separate from the WHO barrier list on Packaging and medicine availability. A requirement list is the sheet on How to define a pharmaceutical packaging line and the downloadable checklist.
How this page was put together
Definitions are pointers, not new claims. If a guide changes a boundary, this page has to change with it.
Use the pointers in that direction only. Do not treat a short label here as permission to skip the guide, and do not treat a WHO sentence about quality-assured medicines as a definition of a blister, a carton or a film. The resources section holds this glossary next to the requirement checklist. Readers who need the actor list for a health system should leave this page for Systems thinking in healthcare rather than stretch a packaging word until it covers governance. The same restraint applies in the other direction: a governance sentence is not a pack specification.