PSL TabCell: High Containment Retrofit For Tablet Presses

The Pharmaceutical Industry has, over the past decade, seen a gradual trend in increased requirement for higher containment of the Primary drugs handled. This, in combination with drugs becoming more potent and requiring smaller scale production, has resulted in equipment suppliers having to keep pace with the tighter demands stipulated by both Corporate and Government legislations, for better operator protection during handling of pharmaceutical compounds with higher containment targets for OEL (Occupational Exposure Level) and the pharmaceutical industry itself classifying compounds with tighter exposure guidelines.

The production of more potent APIs requiring high containment environments is having a knock-on effect on the formulation manufacturing and final packaging sectors. Formulation equipment and tablet & capsule making areas are now coming under increased scrutiny to tighten up on containment standards used.

In many facilities it is typical that there are several existing tablet presses installed many years ago, when the requirements for containment in formulation manufacturing were not stringent. Such facilities are now faced with the challenge of upgrading equipment for high containment. As with most challenges, there is more than one way to address this challenge. One option would be to replace these existing tablet presses with more modern units capable of providing high containment. However, there are not a great deal of fully contained tablet presses available on the market, and those that do exist are high value capital purchases, and can require considerable installation/commissioning/validation cost and time. An alternative approach is to retrofit existing presses with improved containment systems.