The impact of glidants on the rheological properties of active pharmaceutical ingredients: A study of conventional and alternative flow enhancers.

Nowadays, most of the newly developed active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) consist of cohesive particles with a mean particle size of <100μm, a wide particle size distribution (PSD) and a tendency to agglomerate, therefore they are difficult to handle in continuous manufacturing (CM) lines. The current paper focuses on the impact of various glidants on the bulk properties of difficult-to-handle APIs. Three challenging powders were included: two extremely cohesive APIs (acetaminophen micronized (APAPμ) and metoprolol tartrate (MPT)) which previously have shown processing issues during different stages of the continuous direct compression (CDC)-line and a spray dried placebo (SD) powder containing hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose (HPMC), known for its sub-optimal flow with a high specific surface area (SSA) and low density.

Ten years of the manufacturing classification system: a review of literature applications and an extension of the framework to continuous manufacture.

The MCS initiative was first introduced in 2013. Since then, two MCS papers have been published: the first proposing a structured approach to consider the impact of drug substance physical properties on manufacturability and the second outlining real world examples of MCS principles. By 2023, both publications had been extensively cited by over 240 publications.

A multivariate formulation and process development platform for direct compression.

The efficient development of robust tableting processes is challenging due to the lack of mechanistic understanding on the impact of raw material properties and process parameters on tablet quality. The experimental determination of the effect of process and formulation parameters on tablet properties and subsequent optimization is labor-intensive, expensive and time-consuming. The combined use of an extensive raw material property database, process simulation tools and multivariate modeling allows more efficient and more optimized development of the direct compression (DC) process.

A multivariate methodology for material sparing characterization and blend design in drug product development.

This study developed a material and time saving method for powder characterization. Building on an earlier developed raw material property database for use towards development of pharmaceutical dry powder processes, blends were selected in an efficient way to include maximal variability of the underlying raw material dataset. For both raw materials and blends, powder characterization methods were kept to a minimum by selecting the testing methods that described the highest amount of variability in physical powder properties based on principal component analysis (PCA).

In-depth analysis of the long-term processability of materials during continuous feeding.

This study determined the feasibility of long-term continuous powder feeding and its effect on the overall process performance. Additionally, quantitative relationships were established between material properties, process settings and screw feeding responses during gravimetric feeding. Twelve divergent raw materials were processed over longer periods using a GEA Compact Feeder integrated in a continuous direct compression line (ConsiGma™ CDC-50).