The popularity of “the Pill” created a new market for pharmaceutical companies. For the first time, healthy women would be taking medication for an extended period of time. Pill manufacturers developed unique packaging in order to distinguish their product from those of their competitors and build brand loyalty. Packaging design often incorporated a “memory aid” to assist women in tracking their daily pill regimen, as well as styled cases to allow pills to be discreetly carried in bags and purses. The National Museum of American History’s Division of Medicine and Science’s collection of oral contraceptives illustrates some of the changes that the packaging and marketing of the Pill underwent from its inception in 1960 to the present.
The Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation of Raritan, New Jersey, produced this Ortho-Cyclen brand oral contraceptive around 1990. The 28-pill monthly regimen is in a purple foil wrapper that contains a DialPak dispenser and booklet titled “Questions and answers on Ortho-Cyclen tablets.” Ortho trademarked the term DialPak in 1965, and was the first company to release their medication in a memory-aid device, now ubiquitous among makers of oral contraceptives. This DialPak dispenser contains 21 blue hormonal tablets and 7 green inert tablets.
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