Delta-mannitol to enable continuous twin-screw granulation of a highly dosed, poorly compactable formulation

23 Jul 2024 | Contributor(s): Vanhoorne, V., Almey, R., De Beer, T., Vervaet, C.

In current study, it was investigated if the moisture-mediated polymorphic transition from δ- to β-mannitol during twin screw granulation (TSG) also took place in high drug loaded formulations and if the specific granule morphology associated with the polymorphic transition could enable tableting...

Control oriented modeling of twin-screw granulation in the ConsiGmaTM-25 production plant

09 Jul 2024 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Johannes Khinast, Martin Horn, Jakob Rehrl, Selma Celikovic, Johannes Poms

ConsiGmaTM-25 is a continuous production plant integrating a twin-screw granulation, fluid bed drying, granule conditioning, and a tableting unit. The particle size distribution (PSD), active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) content, and liquid content of wet granules after twin-screw...

Control oriented modeling of twin-screw granulation in the ConsiGmaTM-25 production plant

09 Jul 2024 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Johannes Khinast, Martin Horn, Jakob Rehrl, Selma Celikovic, Johannes Poms

ConsiGmaTM-25 is a continuous production plant integrating a twin-screw granulation, fluid bed drying, granule conditioning, and a tableting unit. The particle size distribution (PSD), active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) content, and liquid content of wet granules after twin-screw...

Automated and continuous synthesis of drug substances

24 Apr 2024 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Sacher, Stephan, Castillo, Ismael, Rehrl, Jakob, Sagmeister, Peter, Lebl, René, Kruisz, Julia, Celikovic, Selma, Sipek, Martin, Williams, Jason D., Kirschneck, Dirk, Kappe, C. Oliver, Horn, Martin

A continuous synthesis line was developed integrating different common reaction steps namely nitration, substitution and hydrogenation. Mesalazine as model drug substance was produced from 2-chlorobenzoic acid in continuous flow mode. A multi-instrument PAT strategy was implemented to equip the...

Videometric mass flow control: A new method for real-time measurement and feedback control of powder micro-feeding based on image analysis

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Madarasz, L, Kote, AGyurkes, M, Farkas, A, Hambalko, B, Pataki, H, Fulop, G, Marosi, G, Lengyel, L, Casian, T, Csorba, K, Nagy, ZK

The present paper reports the first monitoring and control of ultra-low dose powder feeding using a camera image-based mass flow measurement system. Caffeine was fed via a single-screw microfeeder as a model active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). The mass, mass flow and sizes of the particles...

Visualization and understanding of the granulation liquid mixing and distribution during continuous twin screw granulation using NIR chemical imaging

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Vercruysse, Jurgen, Toiviainen, Maunu, Fonteyne, Margot, Helkimo, Niko, Ketolainen, Jarkko, Juuti, Mikko, Delaet, Urbain, Van Assche, Ivo, Remon, Jean Paul, Vervaet, Chris, De Beer, Thomas

Over the last decade, there has been increased interest in the application of twin screw granulation as a continuous wet granulation technique for pharmaceutical drug formulations. However, the mixing of granulation liquid and powder material during the short residence time inside the screw...

Using Residence Time Distributions (RTDs) to Address the Traceability of Raw Materials in Continuous Pharmaceutical Manufacturing

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Engisch, William, Muzzio, Fernando

Continuous processing in pharmaceutical manufacturing is a relatively new approach that has generated significant attention. While it has been used for decades in other industries, showing significant advantages, the pharmaceutical industry has been slow in its adoption of continuous processing,...

Use of the channel fill level in defining a design space for twin screw wet granulation

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Gorringe, L. J., Kee, G. S., Saleh, M. F., Fa, N. H., Elkes, R. G.

Twin screw wet granulation is a key process in the continuous manufacture of oral solid dosage forms. Previous Research Article has qualitatively suggested that the channel fill level influences the granules produced. In this paper a quantitative measure of the total volumetric fraction of the...

TPLS as predictive platform for twin-screw wet granulation process and formulation development

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Ryckaert, A., Van Hauwermeiren, D., Dhondt, J., De Man, A., Funke, A., Djuric, D., Vervaet, C., Nopens, I., De Beer, T.

In recent years, the interest in continuous manufacturing techniques, such as twin-screw wet granulation, has increased. However, the understanding of the influence of the combination of raw material properties and process settings upon the granule quality attributes is still limited. In this...

Transfer from High-Shear Batch to Continuous Twin Screw Wet Granulation: A Case Study in Understanding the Relationship Between Process Parameters and Product Quality Attributes

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Beer, Paul, Wilson, David, Huang, Zhenyu, De Matas, Marcel

A twin screw to high-shear batch granulation technology switch was evaluated for a pharmaceutical development project. Differences in granule (particle size distribution and porosity) and tablet (dissolution) quality attributes were analysed for both continuous and batch technologies. Liquid to...

Twin screw granulation - review of current progress

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Thompson, M. R.

Twin screw granulation (TSG) is a new process of interest to the pharmaceutical community that can continuously wet granulate powders, doing so at lower liquid concentrations and with better product consistency than found by a high shear batch mixer. A considerable body of Research Article has...

The Influence of Equipment Design and Process Parameters on Granule Breakage in a Semi-Continuous Fluid Bed Dryer after Continuous Twin-Screw Wet Granulation

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Ryckaert, Alexander, Ghijs, Michael, Portier, Christoph, Djuric, Dejan, Funke, Adrian, Vervaet, Chris, De Beer, Thomas

The drying unit of a continuous from-powder-to-tablet manufacturing line based on twin-screw granulation (TSG) is a crucial intermediate process step to achieve the desired tablet quality. Understanding the size reduction of pharmaceutical granules before, during, and after the fluid bed drying...

The Future of Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Sciences

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Rantanen, Jukka, Khinast Johannes

The entire pharmaceutical sector is in an urgent need of both innovative technological solutions and fundamental scientific work, enabling the production of highly engineered drug products. Commercial-scale manufacturing of complex drug delivery systems (DDSs) using the existing technologies is...

The effect of screw configuration and formulation variables on liquid requirements and granule quality in a continuous twin screw wet granulation process

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Vandevivere, L., Van Wijmeersch, E., Hausler, O., De Beer, T., Vervaet, C., Vanhoorne, V.

The effect of two screw configurations with varying stagger angle was evaluated on the liquid amount required to produce good quality granules for a highly (mannitol-based) and a poorly (DCP-based) soluble formulation containing different binders. It is generally known that the use of a higher...

The impact of channel fill level on internal forces during continuous twin screw wet granulation

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Torrecillas, Carlota Mendez, Gorringe, Lee J., Rajoub, Nazer, Robertson, John, Elkes, Richard G., Lamprou, Dimitrios A., Halbert, Gavin W

The forces experienced by the particles inside a twin screw granulator (TSG) are one of the most difficult parameters to measure quantitatively. However, it is possible to perform accurately this measurement through the use of dye containing calibrated microencapsulated sensors (LAMES) whose...

Switching from batch to continuous granulation: A case study of metoprolol succinate ER tablets

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Kotamarthy, Lalith, Feng, Xin, Alayoubi, Alaadin, Bolla, Pradeep Kumar, Ramachandran, Rohit, Ashraf, Muhammad, O'Connor, Thomas, Zidan, Ahmed

Continuous manufacturing (CM) has been used to produce several immediate release drug products. No extended-release (ER) product manufactured employing CM technology has been approved yet. This study investigated the critical aspects of switching from the batch mode of high shear granulation to...

Simplified formulations with high drug loads for continuous twin-screw granulation

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Meier, R., Thommes, M., Rasenack, N., Krumme, M., Moll, K. -P., Kleinebudde, P.

As different batches of the same excipients will be intermixed during continuous processes, the traceability of batches is complicated. Simplified formulations may help to reduce problems related to batch intermixing and traceability. Twin-screw granulation with subsequent tableting was used to...

Roller compaction: Infrared thermography as a PAT for monitoring powder flow from feeding to compaction zone

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Yu, Mingzhe, Omar, Chalak, Weidemann, Marcus, Schmidt, Alexander, Litster, James D., Salman, Agba D.

Roller compaction is a continuous dry granulation process, in which powder is compressed by two counter-rotating rollers. During this process, the powder feeding to the compaction zone has a significant effect on product quality. This work investigates the flow of powder from the feeding zone to...

Recent progress in continuous manufacturing of oral solid dosage forms

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Vanhoorne, Valérie, Vervaet, Chris

Continuous drug product manufacturing is slowly being implemented in the pharmaceutical industry. Although the benefits related to the quality and cost of continuous manufacturing are widely recognized, several challenges hampered the widespread introduction of continuous manufacturing of drug...

Recent progress in continuous and semi-continuous processing of solid oral dosage forms: a review

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Tezyk, Michal, Ernst, Andrzej, Milanowski, Bartlomiej, Lulek, Janina

Continuous processing is an innovative production concept well known and successfully used in other industries for many years. The modern pharmaceutical industry is facing the challenge of transition from a traditional manufacturing approach based on batch-wise production to a continuous...

Real-time feedback control of twin-screw wet granulation based on image analysis

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Madarasz, Lajos, Hoffer, Istvan, Szabo, Barnabas, Csontos, Istvan, Pataki, Hajnalka, Demuth, Balazs, Szabo, Bence, Csorba, Kristof, Nagy, Zsombor Kristof, Marosi, Gyorgy

The present paper reports the first dynamic image analysis-based feedback control of continuous twin-screw wet granulation process. Granulation of the blend of lactose and starch was selected as a model process. The size and size distribution of the obtained particles were successfully monitored...

Real-Time Monitoring of Powder Mass Flowrates for Plant-Wide Control of a Continuous Direct Compaction Tablet Manufacturing Process

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Huang, Yan-Shu, Medina-González, Sergio Straiton, Benjamin Keller, Joshua, Marashdeh, Qussai, Gonzalez, Marcial, Nagy, Zoltan, Reklaitis, Gintaras V.

While measurement and monitoring of powder/particulate mass flow rate are not essential to the execution of traditional batch pharmaceutical tablet manufacturing, in continuous operation, it is an important additional critical process parameter. It has a key role both in establishing that the...

Real-time process monitoring in a semi-continuous fluid-bed dryer - microwave resonance technology versus near-infrared spectroscopy

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Peters, Johanna, Teske, Andreas, Taute, Wolfgang, Döscher, Claas, Höft, Michael, Knöchel, Reinhard, Breitkreutz, Jörg

The trend towards continuous manufacturing in the pharmaceutical industry is associated with an increasing demand for advanced control strategies. It is a mandatory requirement to obtain reliable real-time information on critical quality attributes (CQA) during every process step as the decision...

Raman Spectroscopy for Monitoring the Continuous Crystallization of Carbamazepine

09 Jun 2023 | Peer-reviewed journal | Contributor(s): Acevedo, D, Mohammad, Adil, Pavurala, Naresh, Wu, Wei-Lee, O'Connor, Thomas F., Nagy, Zoltan K, Yang, Xiaochuan, Cruz, CN

Crystallization has a significant impact on the properties of the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) since it is the final step in the manufacturing of the drug substance and determines particle size distribution, purity, shape, and polymorphs. Many publications have focused on the...