A. Mehrotra

The pharmaceutical industry handles large volumes of granular materials such as powder blends for tablet production and filled capsules everyday (1, 2). Slight changes in ingredient properties or process operation conditions can have a major effect on a finished product's quality. Given the market and regulatory uncertainties that are commonly associated with drug product development, pharmaceutical companies typically have several drugs in various developmental stages at the same time. Because of this volume, the industry must have computer-based rapid-prototyping tools that can efficiently capture and resolve the technical aspects of drug product development so that companies can confidently make decisions about drug portfolio management and planning (3, 4).