Jan Vogeleer

The main challenge for tablet manufacturers processing highly potent APIs (HPAPIs) is to protect equipment operators from the inhalation of airborne particles and prevent skin contact with the product during the entire production process: dispensing, granulation, tablet compression, coating and packaging.

The market for tablet compression technology and the demands placed on equipment manufacturers have changed quite significantly in recent years. This has been driven by a number of factors.

Modern tablet production facilities are faced with two increasingly important, yet contradictory, demands - being able to handle more potent drugs and, at the same time, reduce costs. Additionally, batch sizes must become smaller and production planning more flexible. Until recently, these issues could only be dealt with individually and not as a whole; however, the exchangeable functional module (EFM) may provide a solution to this problem, as this article describes.