OUR CUSTOMERS

Successful Cooperation Yields Anti-Stick Rewards
Pfizer is the world’s largest research based
Pharmaceutical company - discovering, developing,manufacturing, and marketing branded medicines.
However, despite its status as an industry giant,Pfizer still has to handle the common day to day
challenges of tablet compression...
The Project

During 2007 Pfizer Product and Process
Development (PPD, Freiburg Germany)
opened discussions with I Holland regarding
compression problems on one of their solid
dose products under development. The main
objective was to find a coating solution thatwould prevent sticking and also a design solutionthat would prevent picking. Additionally, a key
objective was to evaluate the use of external
spray lubricant against coated tooling options.

The trial was run over three days at the Pfizer
plant in Freiburg Germany with I Holland present
throughout the trial working alongside thePPD team to monitor and analyse the results.
Every tablet produced was isolated from eachindividual station using the capabilities of thepress.

Coatings
As the tricky Pfizer logo was put through its
paces several coatings were also tested fortheir anti-stick performance:

PharmaCote DN

A premium coating for combination problem
products (sticky, corrosive, abrasive;)

An excellent all round coating to prevent
sticking, corrosion & wear;

PharmaCote NI

Bespoke anti-stick coating;

Sticky granuleadhering to thepunch face or diebore.

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Compressed granuleadhering to thedetail on the punchface.

PharmaCote CN

Sticking

Consequently a compression trial was designedthat would test the effects of changes in tablet
design and the latest coating technologies
available. For this I Holland provided two sets oftooling coated with a selection of PharmaCotecoatings from their current and developingrange. The embossed detail on both sides of
the tablet was also redesigned in addition to achange of the tablet profile. The three pronged
approach allowed Pfizer to make an informed
choice of which coating solution/design to use
when scaling up this product for commercialmanufacture. The three parameters (coating,design and profile) were tested simultaneously.

Picking

Development Coating 1
Development Coating 2
Pfizer - Freiburg, Germany

DesignThe premium CN coating proved to be themost effective anti-stick solution, completelyeliminating the sticking problem and thus theneed for an external spray lubricant.
Based on the outcome of the trials, Pfizer
elected to adopt I Holland’s recommendations
for a change in tablet profile to double radius,an optimised embossing design and the CN
coating with the additional ‘plus’ processapplied to the tooling.
Since the trial I Holland have supplied further
tooling for scale up validation batches andall lots have been manufactured successfully
without sticking.
The test set was also used for additional studies
on a second product where the NI coating
proved to be the most effective solution. This is
now being used in development trials.
Significantly, the trials also proved that theuse of advanced coating technologies andthe matching of correct coating properties toeach specific formulation can provide a very
cost effective alternative to expensive external
lubrication systems.
Since the trial, Pfizer have produced over 40
million tablets using the I Holland solution in
the course of a product transfer.
Patrick Daugherity of Pfizer Inc. Groton, USAstates:

During the trial several design parameters weretested:
1. Double radius cup against single radius cup
2. Standard Pfizer logo and product identification
against optimised design with increased counter
dimensions to reduce the chances of picking.
3. External lubrication against coated tooling

Results

PharmaCote treatments and coatings‘The work that I Holland did to troubleshootthis sticking problem and support these trials
was fantastic and proved key to moving thisproject forward.’

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