(509f) A Novel Tablet Coating Technology to Support a Continuous Tableting Line

Continuous Manufacturing is rapidly being developed and implemented by the Pharmaceutical Industry, driven mainly by the reduced Research and Development costs and improved manufacturing quality. For example, manufacturing lines for 10 kg/hr to 100 kg/hr have been implemented for Continuous Direct Compression, Continuous Wet Granulation and Drying, and Continuous Dry Granulation in a tablet manufacturing line. However, to support this throughput range of tablet manufacturing, continuous tablet coating technologies have been very limited and not attractive in supporting the plug flow manufacturing concept.

A novel tablet coating technology was developed to support the 10-100 kg/hr continuous tableting line which is able to coat small sub-batches (3-6 kg) very rapidly (7-15 minutes) with a high degree of accuracy. Using this method, each sub-batch is able to be tracked from the upstream tableting process and critical process parameters monitored during coating to ensure product quality of each sub-batch. Employing a small-footprint twin coating system, the coating process can be linked to the tablet manufacturing line uninterrupted and while maintaining the plug flow from the upstream processes. Additionally, this coating method enables in-line coating thickness and build rate measurement.