CSI aids Surepharm in tablet spraying

The production of tablets is a highly specialised process involving the blending of the active ingredients with excipients. Controlling the many variables - such as type and speed of the mixer and the rate and method of adding ingredients - is essential to ensure that the active component is distributed homogeneously and the tablet has good strength, constant weight and is not friable.

An important final stage in tablet production is the application of either a sugar or film coating. As well as adding colour and sheen to enhance the appearance of the pills, the coating can also protect the active ingredients from exposure to air, mask unpleasant tastes and flavours, delay release of the active ingredient or make the tablet easier to swallow.

Surepharm Services, of Burton upon Trent in the UK, is one of a number of specialist contract tablet manufacturers whose business has grown as a result of the complexity of tablet manufacture. Surepharm started producing tablets 12 years ago and now has a manufacturing capacity in excess of a billion tablets a year. It moved into tablet film coating in 1999 with the purchase of an Accelacota 48 tablet coating machine from Coating Systems International (CSI), followed by a later model, an Accelacota 150.

At the centre of the tablet film coating plant is the spray application system; the Accelacota 150 at Surepharm is equipped with a set of the new CSI MKII Spray Nozzles. These are manufactured to strict CNC standards in the UK and are made from 316 stainless steel with an option of the new flat jet 'anti-bearding' air cap recently developed by CSI. The Control System provides a high degree of sophistication with frequency inverter speed control of the fans in the air handling system and the drum speed drive, together with interlocks and failsafe devices to prevent incorrect start up of the plant or loss of tablets due to a services or system failure.

CSI specialises in one-to-one project management, full maintenance responsibility and turnkey project solutions. At the beginning of the Surepharm project, detailed discussions were held to agree the URS (User Requirement Specification); apart from ensuring the main installation was completed to meet customer requirements, it enabled provisions to be made as part of the installation to add extra facilities at a later date without long periods of product downtime and radical alteration to the control systems. Careful project planning ensured that the appropriate services were available on site when the plant arrived; the result, an installation programme that delivered Surepharm a commercially operational plant on time with production starting without delays.

'The development of improved tablets and manufacturing processes will be increasingly important and companies like Surepharm need to be continuously investing and working in partnership with their suppliers to improve efficiency to keep up with the growing demand for tablets,' said industry consultant Alan Dibbo.