Imprints On Oral Solid Dosage Forms

By Jonas Schäfer and Lutz Drügemöller

Clear, durable imprints on oral solid dosage forms are vital for patient safety, product identification, and regulatory compliance. Selecting the optimal pharmaceutical printing technology requires balancing production efficiency, tablet geometry, and imprint resolution. Direct contact methods like engraved design-roll printing offer fast production throughput for simple tablet shapes. However, indirect gravure pad printing utilizes flexible silicone pads to transfer ink from etched plates, enabling high-precision imprints across complex geometries, including biconvex tablets and hard gelatin capsules. Manufacturing data demonstrates that pad printing significantly reduces setup times by 28%, lowers batch rejection rates by 87%, and increases overall printing speed by 182% while delivering superior print sharpness and uniformity.

Explore the case study to evaluate how pad printing optimizes commercial pharmaceutical manufacturing and product quality.