Gel Caps Texture Application Note

Over the years, advancements in technology and innovation have brought about increasing interest within the pharmaceutical industry in developing tablets containing two or more Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (API) in a single dosage, form promoting customer convenience, compliance, and marketing. The development of tablets with different pre-defined drug release profiles has enabled immediate release and extended release active compounds to be contained in one dosage form. However, production of such tablets has faced great difficulties, being prone to fracture along the material interface of the adjacent layers (de-lamination) during compaction due to inherent binding weaknesses. The mechanical integrity of the tablet can also be compromised if the compacted layers are too soft or too hard, weakening the bonding and adhesion at the interface between the compacted layers. Other common challenges include inaccurate individual layer weight ratio, cross contamination between layers and first layer tampering force. These factors have complicated the mechanical structures of this drug delivery system, thereby requiring complex tablet structural design. Understanding the mechanical strengths of these tablets is commercially significant as tablet failure can be very costly to the industry.