The film coating process requires a balance of the complex interactions between the tablet substrate, coating system, coating process and equipment. As with virtually everything during development, the application of film coatings may run well at the bench or lab scale – only to see challenges emerge during scale-up or technology transfer.
Tablet Film Coating Scale-Up & Tech Transfer
A frequent challenge for manufacturers is scaling up to different coating equipment while maintainingreproducible coating quality. It’s common for issues not predicted earlier in development to become apparent in real-world settings.
As part of technology transfer, scale-up studies involve taking the optimized, already-developed process and transferring it to various equipment types and sizes…often at other manufacturing sites. In some cases, it can involve further optimization of parameters specific to the manufacturing site or a particular piece of equipment.
This can also come into play during modernization efforts. As older processes or equipment are improved, coating parameters sometimes change. This is not uncommon when shifting from a conventional type of coater (solid-pan) to a perforated pan (auto-coater), or when transitioning from batch coating to larger scale continuous or semi-continuous coating equipment
