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 State-of-the-art tableting facilities manufacture a vast array of tablet shapes, sizes and formulations
Sphere Healthcare’s large capacity granulating, tableting and coating facilities manufacture a broad range of hard tablet products. A variety of product technologies and configurations are available including sustained release, chewable, dual layer, effervescent, mucosal delivery, novelty shapes, enteric, aqueous and solvent coated. Sphere has an extensive formulary of tablets containing vitamins, minerals, herbs, amino acids, pro-biotics and various other nutraceutical ingredients. High speed computer controlled tablet presses manufacture tablets of varying shape and size. Granulation processes include the use of pneumatic fluid bed equipment making enteric, aqueous and solvent coating available. In the tablet-pressing process, it is important that all ingredients be fairly dry, powdered or granular, somewhat uniform in particle size, and freely flowing. Mixed particle sized powders can segregate due to operational vibrations, which can result in tablets with poor drug or active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) content uniformity. Content uniformity ensures that the same API dose is delivered with each tablet. Some APIs may be tableted as pure substances, but this is rarely the case; most formulations include excipients. Normally, an inactive ingredient (excipient) termed a binder is added to help hold the tablet together and give it strength. A wide variety of binders may be used, some common ones including lactose powder, dibasic calcium phosphate, sucrose, corn (maize) starch, microcrystalline cellulose and modified cellulose (for example hydroxymethyl cellulose). Often, an ingredient is also needed to act as a disintegrant that hydrates readily in water to aid tablet dispersion once swallowed, releasing the API for absorption. Some binders, such as starch and cellulose, are also excellent disintegrants. Tablets are available in many sizes and shapes. Sphere Healthcare also manufacture a range of nutraceutical powder formulations. |
Sphere has the ability to manufacture bi-layer or dual layer tablets. The product rationale may be purely aesthetic, where varying colours may be used to produce a visually attractive product, or be functional, such as the ability to produce a tablet with split formulations or to contain both an immediate and sustained or modified release phase.