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8 May/June 2021 Tablets & Capsules W Stuart C. Porter PPT Pharma Technologies Trends in continuous film-coating processes coating This article explores emerging trends in continuous pharma- ceutical film-coating processes. hile continuous film-coating processes might seem a recent addition to pharmaceutical manufacturing, such processes have seen somewhat limited use in the industry for approximately 30 years. Early continuous pharmaceutical coating processes evolved primarily from processes designed for the agricultural seed coating industries [1]. Initially, these processes were designed to achieve high through- puts (500 to 2,000 kg/h) and were primarily adopted by a few large-volume vitamin manufacturers and private-label consumer healthcare drug manufacturers. In recent years, the landscape has changed, and continu- ous film coating has become more attractive to generic drug companies manufacturing relatively large-volume products such as metformin, as well as companies interested in implementing totally continuous manufacturing processes. These changes have required significant technological advances in film-coating equipment and formulations. Early large-volume fully continuous coating processes have now been complemented by lower-volume fully con- tinuous coaters, semi-continuous coating processes, and rapid-turnaround batch coating processes, as shown in Figure 1. Generally, the throughput rate for a continuous process depends on the equipment design, the amount of coating to be applied (which is usually dictated by tablet Courtesy of Driam