Coating tablets, medication, or medicine within another substance is one of the oldest medical practices in the world. Today, the manufacturing process has changed quite a bit, but the original intention remains the same.
Over 60 Years of Experience With All Types of Tablet Coating
Whatever the type of coating on your tablets, it is meant to make the pharmaceutical ingredients more effective. Sometimes that means making the medication more palatable, and other times it means protecting the ingredients from the gastric environment in the stomach. The film coating process plays a vital role that many people might overlook.
At Thomas Engineering, we understand the importance of maintaining these process parameters and the quality of the pharmaceutical ingredients. Our business might be over six decades old now, but we have kept ourselves on the leading edge of pharmaceutical tablet manufacturing processes. We’ve been around long enough that many of the practices we pioneered have become industry standards.
The Different Methods of Coating Tablets Affect the Quality of Your Medication
Coating tablets is not just about making medications easier to take and simpler to ship in large quantities. There are multiple objectives for the different tablet coating:
- Masking Flavor
Many medications come with a less than favorable taste or odor that comes from the ingredients. Film-coated tablets make the pill more palatable and comfortable to swallow for the end-user. - Physical Protection
It is crucial that ingredients remain uncontaminated from outside physical or chemical sources during distribution or transportation. Our tablet coating machinery help maintain the dosage form and protect the medication from any contamination. - Timed Release
Depending on the medication, it might need to be released more slowly and over time. The right coating makes this process simple and delivers better results for the end user. - Incorporation
There are often medications that must be combined, but only after they’ve been administered. Tablet coating makes it possible to incorporate multiple types of medications into one pill without mixing them until the proper time. - Dosage
There are occasionally times when a prescription advises the end user to split the tablet or pill and take the pieces separately. The right application of tablet coatings allows for the split to occur without shattering the entire pill. - Gastric Defense
How do you stop stomach acid from just dissolving any medication you take? The gastric environment in any stomach is a rough place, but tablet coatings or films can protect your medication from the acidity of your stomach. - Increased Strength
Pills and tablets need to be sturdy enough to survive the path they take to end up in your medicine cabinet. Tablet coating delivers the delicate balance of a pill that is strong enough to survive the rigors of travel and vulnerable enough to be absorbed by the body.
The Film Coating Process Requires High-Quality Equipment
You want a tablet coating process that is uniform, consistent, and with as few flaws as possible. Generally speaking, the coating solution is sprayed onto uncoated tablets as they are agitated in a coating pan, tablet bed, or drum. A thin film forms on every tablet, and any excess coating solution evaporates by the air passing through the tablet coater. There can be single drug layer applications or multiple layers depending on the medication.
There are many types of coating solutions your process might require depending on your application. Thomas Engineering and our tablet coating machines support nearly every kind of coating solution available on the pharmaceutical market today.
- Sugar Coating
- Film Coating
- Organic Coating
- Enteric Coating
- Aqueous Film Coating
- And more
A Professional Manufacturing Process Supported by Industry Experts
Our Flex line of tablet coaters performs these functions dependably and consistently across your entire line of tablets. We offer coaters of various sizes with versatile applications, and many of them come with the convenience of easily exchangeable drums for rapid batch swapping. Every tablet coater also comes with our Compu-Coat control system. The different versions of this software offer operation in multiple languages, automatic export of batch reports, and internal recipe storage.
When you purchase a tablet coater with Thomas, you will also receive the full ongoing support of our team. We send out our team members for in-person equipment maintenance and process optimization to ensure that your machinery is performing as promised. We also offer spare parts/kits to help your people be more prepared for possible replacements or repairs.
To learn more about the different types of tablet coating and our products, contact Thomas Engineering today.
