Pharmaceutical Product Texture Measurement and Analysis

The pharmaceutical industry, once among the most reliable investment areas for any portfolio, has faced increasing instability in recent years.

Both successful and aborted mergers, adverse publicity on pricing issues, cost pressures coming out of Obamacare in the US, the increase in patent expiries and the ongoing challenge of maintaining profitability in the face of ever-growing development costs have seen the industry on the back foot.

Countering this are the encouragements of new vaccines and new breakthroughs in immunotherapy which have been seen in many organisations, and the knowledge that emerging markets will continue to fuel demand.

The global pharmaceutical market is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2014 and nearly $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. The market is likely to increase at an annual growth rate of 3 - 6% over the next five years, slowing at even the best estimate from the 6.2% during the past five.

The pharmaceutical industry has faced increasing instability in recent years, with both successful and aborted mergers, adverse publicity on pricing issues, cost pressures coming out of Obamacare in the US, the increase in patent expiries and the ongoing challenge of maintaining profitability in the face of ever-growing development costs.

Countering this are the encouragements of new vaccines and new breakthroughs in immunotherapy which have been seen in many organisations, and the knowledge that emerging markets will continue to fuel demand.

The global pharmaceutical market is expected to reach $1 trillion by 2014 and nearly $1.1 trillion by 2015, according to the IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics. The market will increase at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 3–6% during the next five years, slowing from the 6.2% annual growth rate that occurred during the past five years.

Since its introduction into pharmaceuticals, the scope of texture analysis has widened considerably into fields such as cosmetics, packaging, personal care products and medical devices. Instruments can be supplied with a range of attachments which are fitted to the body of the machine in order to perform various tests on different products.

Now widely used to uphold quality standards whilst providing essential product data and benchmarking statistics, texture analysis has become an indispensable aid in the development of many pharmaceutical products, for example: blister packaging; packaging for sterile products; tablets and tablet coatings; gels and gel-coated delivery systems; metered dose inhalers; and transdermal delivery systems. which is being statistics.

Modern techniques and instruments have revolutionised both R&D and quality control at all stages of the manufacturing process. In the past, laboratories would contain viscometers, rheometers, penetrometers and hardness testers, with varying capabilities and limited application areas. The flexibility of modern analysers, which can measure almost any rheological property, saves on space, training and costs, particularly where dedicated software is integrated.

The subjectivity and lack of repeatability which hampered previous testing have been overcome to provide greater accuracy and improved continuity - increasingly important in light of the continued globalisation of the pharmaceutical industry and an anticipated requirement for process standardisation.

Watch the video below to see a summary of the types of testing possibilities that are available for the measurement of pharmaceutical products.

You can also visit our website's Pharmaceutical Applications page...