Technology Trends In Pharma

Juzer Pendi

The Indian pharmaceutical industry has undergone a sea of change in the last two decades. Government pressures and misleading impressions of the industry making huge profits created a negative image among people. Besides increasing labour costs, price control regulations have led the industry to exercise restrictions on manpower, salary structures, and closure of manufacturing units. The industry which was a high labour intensive industry has opted for automated machinery, and reduced manpower requirements.

The industry continues to accept challenges in the fields of technology and GMP implementation. Tablets are the most commonly manufactured dosage form. The conventional planetary mixer has been replaced by a RMG (Rapid Mixer Granulator) which has a capacity of more than 500 kg. Fluidised bed driers having single loading capacity of 200 kg has enabled manufacturers to increase their manufacturing capacities by leaps and bounds. Increased batch size and fully automated systems has reduced product/batch changeover times. Octagonal blenders having a capacity of more than 500 kg is very useful for lubrication purposes are opted by most manufacturers. Compression machines have become all the more sophisticated. The 70s and 80s had 16 station, 35 ,45 station machines have been replaced by 61 station Rota presses giving outputs of more than 4600 tablets per minute. The conventional 36 inch coating pans have been replaced by 48/72 inch coating pans and has increase the coating capacity considerably. Packaging machines have become all the more sophisticated. Emphasis is being applied to Blister packaging machines though certain products continue to be strip-packed. Modern strip-packing machines of six track giving more than 150 strips per minuite. Blister packing machines have undergone tremendous sophistication. It is fully automated with an integrated blister-cartoning operations, colour cameras and pharma-code detection systems for online inspection and a high level GMP compliance.

Automated manufacturing has enveloped the parenteral segment. Large volume parenterals which used conventional glass bottles have been replaced by form ,fill and seal technology having output of more than 20,000 bottles per shift and minimised man handling in the sterile zone. Sterile dry powder filling machines which earlier gave outputs of 40,000 vials per shift have been replaced by machines giving outputs of 0.4 million per day.

Bottle washing operations have also become more sophisticated. The conventional operation involving nylon brushes has been replaced by linear bottle washing machines with automatic loading and unloading of bottles and outputs of 90 to 240 bottles per minute. Monoblock filling and sealing machines provided with a PLC makes filling and sealing reliable. Some reliable machine manufacturers involved in automated liquid lines have proposed elimination of bottle washing completely. Glass bottles which are still at the manufacturing stages (moulds) at high temperatures and in sterile condition could be subjected to an air wash before filling with the medicament. This is not yet accepted by all organisations.

The pharmaceutical industry is dependent on many ancillary industries on which no price control is exercised. The negative image created by the media that the industry indulged in spurious/adulterated drug manufacturing is misleading and has been blown out of proportion on account of few black sheep.