CPHI Milan 2024: Evolution of Coating Design

Pharmaceutical Technology® Europe spoke with Ali Rajabi-Siahboomi, vice president and chief innovation officer at Colorcon, about the evolution of coating design and how it has impacted investment, as well as innovations in packaging for oral solid dosage products.

Coating design for solid dosage products has evolved from sugar coating to film coating to solvent-based and then to aqueous coating over the years, according to Rajabi-Siahboomi. “But the development of this robust and optimized formulation that we've had, and the umbrella of the Opadry system, has made it much easier to have the right film coating, but at the same time, apply it much more efficiently,” he says.

The functionalities of film coating have changed over the years as well, according to Rajabi-Siahboomi. “Many years ago, [film coating] was just more for adding color and recognizing different dosages and different product. Nowadays, we apply functionalities [such as] moisture barrier … putting tags in those film coating so that we can identify them as part of authentication and counterfeiting, anti-counterfeiting. So, there has been a whole evolution, but when we talk about some of these challenges, … it highlights the need for continuously focusing on innovating, bringing continuous improvement and innovation in this field.”

Click the above video to watch the full interview.

Visit Colorcon at Booth 6D58. CPHI Milan is being held from Oct. 8–10, 2024 in Milan, Italy.

About the speaker

Ali Rajabi-Siahboomi is the vice-president and chief innovation officer at Colorcon, based at the Global Headquarters, USA. Rajabi-Siahboomi has held various academic positions in Nottingham and Liverpool JM Universities in the United Kingdom before joining Colorcon as technical director, responsible for Europe, the Middle East, and Africa, in 2000. His main research interests are solid dosage form pharmaceutics, pharmaceutical technology with emphasis on oral drug delivery systems, solubility enhancement to improve bioavailability, and consistency of drugs and bioequivalence formulations. He has published more than 300 articles, book chapters, abstracts, and patents and obtained his B.Pharm. and PhD in pharmacy from the University of Nottingham (UK).