Manufacturing platforms for patient-centric drug products

Abstract

This text aims to provide a brief overview of tablet and capsule manufacturing approaches, to highlight some of the industrial engineering issues that exist in standard secondary manufacturing processes for oral solid dose products (which may often be overlooked by those who are unfamiliar with pharmaceutical production activities), and to provide a review of dose forms that are commonly employed for elderly patient groups. At present, a limited set of oral dose forms is used by the industry for this purpose, some of which formulation approaches offer potential benefits in terms of ease of swallowing by elderly patients, and these product types are considered briefly. The aim is to provide an overview and summary of existing formulation and manufacturing approaches that are used for the provision of dose forms for elderly patients, noting the associated practical issues and challenges.