With the pressure to develop drugs faster, shorten time to market and reduce costs, continuous manufacturing (CM) is rapidly moving into the focus of the pharmaceutical industry.
Fette Compacting, specialists in tablet compression and Glatt, producers of powder processing and tablet coatings will co-operate to develop new continuous manufacturing solutions.
The new offering will combine the know-how and experience of Fette Compacting and Glatt in the areas of pharmaceutical process technology and equipment design to provide manufactures of oral solid dosage forms (OSD), tablets and capsules with state of the art CM solutions for formulation development, clinical trials, pilot and full commercial production.
Development of a shared technology platform
“Our aim is to jointly develop a technology platform for continuous manufacturing of OSD which outperforms the competition in terms of process robustness, product quality and yield, efficiency, productivity and operator safety”, said Olaf J. Müller CEO at Fette Compacting.
Thomas Hofmaier, Head of Business Unit Process Technologies Pharma at Glatt, said: “Fette Compacting and Glatt are leading their specific markets in terms of technology and market share. Combining our know-how and global network we make high-performance turnkey solutions for continuous manufacturing of OSD available for customers worldwide right now.”
At P-MEC 2018 the two companies have exhibited the first continuous line resulting from the co-operation. The combination of Glatt’s innovative technology with Fette Compacting’s FE35 tablet press to a continuous direct compression line offers users a solution, which is equally easy to install as operate.
In the future the two companies will put a focus on the development of comprehensive integrated solutions for direct compression and granulation based CM lines, including advanced process control systems.
Both companies also cooperate in the areas of sales, project execution and service, and provide advice on technical process challenges such as formulation, PAT concepts, containment requirements or cleaning cycles within production lines.
Test facility in Pune opens in February 2018
Beginning in February 2018, Glatt and Fette Compacting will offer customer trials for continuous direct compression and continuous wet granulation in Pune, India, in a new test facility.