An analysis of the mini-tablet fluidized bed coating process

Current State of Minitablet Product Design: A Review

Interest in minitablets (MTs) has grown exponentially over the last 20 years and especially the last decade, as evidenced by the number of publications cited in Scopus and PubMed. MTs offer significant opportunities for personalized medicine, dose titration and flexible dosing, taste masking, and customizing drug delivery systems. Advances in specialized MT tooling, manufacturing, and characterization instrumentation have overcome many of the earlier development issues. Breakthrough MT swallowability, acceptability, and palatability research have challenged the long-standing idea that only liquids are acceptable dosage forms for infants and young children. MTs have been shown to be a highly acceptable dosage form for infants, small children, and geriatric patients who have difficulty swallowing. This review discusses the current state of MT applications, acceptability in pediatric and geriatric populations, medication adherence, manufacturing processes such as tableting and coating, running powder and tablet characterization, packaging and MT dispensing, and regulatory considerations.

Surface Modifiers on Composite Particles for Direct Compaction

Direct compaction (DC) is considered to be the most effective method of tablet production. However, only a small number of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can be successfully manufactured into tablets using DC since most APIs lack adequate functional properties to meet DC requirements. The use of suitable modifiers and appropriate co-processing technologies can provide a promising approach for the preparation of composite particles with high functional properties. The purpose of this review is to provide an overview and classification of different modifiers and their multiple combinations that may improve API tableting properties or prepare composite excipients with appropriate co-processed technology, as well as discuss the corresponding modification mechanism. Moreover, it provides solutions for selecting appropriate modifiers and co-processing technologies to prepare composite particles with improved properties.

In-Line Film Coating Thickness Estimation of Minitablets in a Fluid-Bed Coating Equipment

Film coating thickness of minitablets was estimated in-line during coating in a fluid-bed equipment by means of visual imaging. An existing, commercially available image acquisition system was used for image acquisition, while dedicated image analysis and data analysis methods were developed for this purpose. The methods were first tested against simulated minitablet's images and after that examined on a laboratory-scale fluid-bed Wurster coating process. An observation window cleaning mechanism was developed for this purpose. Six batches of minitablets were coated in total, using two different dispersions, where for the second dispersion coating endpoint was determined based on the in-line measurement. Coating thickness estimates were calculated from the increasing size distributions of the minitablet's major and minor lengths, assessed from the acquired images. Information on both the minitablet's average band and average cap coating thicknesses was obtained. The in-line coating thickness estimates were compared to the coating thickness weight gain calculations and the optical microscope measurements as a reference method. Average band coating thickness estimate was found the most accurate in comparison to microscope measurements, with root mean square error of 1.30 μm. The window cleaning mechanism was crucial for the accuracy of the in-line measurements as was evident from the corresponding decrease of the root mean square error (9.52 μm, band coating thickness). The presented visual imaging approach exhibits accuracy of at least 2 μm and is not susceptible to coating formulation or color variations. It presents a promising alternative to other existing techniques for the in-line coating thickness estimation.