Excipients for coating and filling of capsules

Capsules are an important drug delivery, primary "packaging" platform in the pharmaceutical and nutraceutical industry. In this article by BIOGRUND from earlier this year you learn more about the coating of capsules both hard gelatine and soft gelatine capsules but not only.

Capsule Coating:

Coating of hard and soft capsules is becoming increasingly important for several reasons.

Examples are: the administration of new active substances, the administration of drugs in the colon, oral vaccination, use in studies ((pre)clinical). Preventing sticking together. The biggest advantage is the independence of the coating composition from the filling of the capsule.

BIOGRUND offers different coating systems for capsule coating. For pharmaceutical, nutraceutical and other industries. The coating systems are individually formulated & customized manufactured and fitted to your needs. Whether organic, vegan, enteric, without TiO2, specially colored or clear.

Various types of capsules can be coated with different functional film coatings.

Enteric coated capsules

Most pharmaceutical capsules are made of gelatin or a vegetarian gelatin equivalent (usually a form of cellulose). These materials dissolve in low pH gastric juices in the stomach. However, some medications are not effective when released in the stomach and must pass into the intestine where they can be absorbed at higher pH. Enteric-coated capsules are designed to pass through the stomach unaffected and dissolve in the intestinal tract.

What are these capsules?

• Enteric-coated capsules are capsules that have an acid-resistant coating that prevents them from dissolving when they pass through the stomach. The capsules are not activated until they pass through an alkaline environment – that is, with a pH of 5.5 or higher, which is normally the case when they reach the small intestine.
• The coating can be formulated with the appropriate polymers (acrylic acid copolymer, HPMC AS or sodium alginate), coloring additives and additional excipients.

Advantages

• Enteric-coated capsules do not dissolve in the mouth, making them ideal for formulations that do not need to be activated by acid exposure. The coating prevents the capsule from dissolving in the mouth and esophagus.
• Many drugs can irritate the stomach when released there; with enteric-coated capsules, the formulation passes through the stomach without irritating the gastric mucosa.
• The enteric coating also prevents the enzymes in the capsule from dissolving in the acidic environment of the stomach.
• These enteric-coated capsules typically take one to two hours to dissolve, making them ideal for time-sensitive medications.

TiO2 free coated capsules

The trend towards clean labels continues to dominate. Organic, vegan, free of titanium dioxide, iron oxide and talcum etc.

Individual formulations according to customer-specific wishes are no problem for us.

BIOGRUND offers solutions regarding TiO2 free coatings. Instead of a colored hard capsule, a clear hard capsule is used and coated with a colored TiO2-free film coating.

Here you can see clear hard capsules which have been coated with a TiO2-free film coating:

Here’s our hard capsule sample box on which our ready-to-use film coating system AquaPolish? natural colored has been applied.

• The colors/pigments were made from fruits, vegetables & edible plants.
• Free of titanium dioxide and iron oxides.

Not only coating hard gelatin capsules is easy, but also filling them.

Especially with APIs and powder blends that tend to clump, the flowability and lubrication of the filler (bulk material or powder blend) can be optimized with the aid of an additional additive. The premix CompactCel? MAB absorbs moisture well within bulk materials, so that a clean powder flow can take place during capsule filling.

If the powder blend is then filled into hard gelatin capsules, precision dosing of exact amounts of ingredients or nutrients can be achieved. CompactCel? FLO whereas provides a stable and consistent powder flow during the capsule filling process by reducing the interparticle friction.

Biogrund on pharmaexcipients

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