Tablet coating is a key process in modern medicine and health supplement manufacturing. But do you know why tablet coating is so widely used? Understanding the benefits of tablet coating will help you choose the right coating and optimize your production. This article will explain the importance of tablet coating.
Value of Tablet Coating in Protecting Medicine
Humidity Protection
Uncoated tablets have a porous surface and are highly susceptible to absorbing moisture from the air. This may trigger hydrolysis, destroying the API’s chemical structure. For example, when aspirin comes into contact with water, it decomposes into salicylic acid and acetic acid. This not only reduces the efficacy of the medicine, but also the salicylic acid may be irritating to the stomach.
Tablet coating helps reduce direct contact between the medicine and water, significantly minimizing the risk of hydrolysis. This helps preserve the efficacy of your product and extend its shelf life.
Light Protection
Many APIs are sensitive to light. When exposed to ultraviolet or visible light, these APIs may lose their activity or even generate harmful substances.
For these materials, you can use coatings containing light-blocking agents such as titanium dioxide or iron oxide. It can block 95% of ultraviolet and visible light and reduce the loss of active ingredients caused by photodegradation. However, the specific light-blocking performance may vary depending on the formulation.
Oxidation Protection
Oxidation can cause many APIs to degrade, such as vitamin A, vitamin E, vitamin C, and epinephrine. Tablet coatings provide a certain degree of oxygen barrier protection. Some functional coatings have oxygen permeability rates that are significantly lower than those of the porous surfaces of uncoated tablets. In some formulations, you can also add antioxidants into the coating to further slow down the oxidation process.
Protection Against Damage
During production, packaging, and transportation, tablets are subject to impacts, friction, and other stresses. The edges of uncoated tablets are prone to wear, resulting in dust and debris. A film coating can significantly improve a tablet’s resistance to abrasion. This helps reduce damage to your products during transit.
Protection Against Loss of Volatile Components
Some traditional Chinese medicines or tablets contain volatile ingredients, such as peppermint oil and eucalyptus oil. If tablets are not coated, the active ingredients will gradually evaporate and be lost.
Certain coating systems act as a physical barrier, helping to lock in the volatile components and improve content stability throughout shelf life.
Value of Tablet Coating in Terms of Usage
Tablet coating also has a significant impact on the patient or consumer’s experience with the medication. A positive experience with the medication helps your brand gain consumer favor.
Masks the Taste
Many APIs have a very bitter taste or an unpleasant odor, such as quinine and erythromycin. These unpleasant tastes are one of the most common reasons for people to refuse to take their medication, especially among children and elderly patients.
Coating can physically isolate the drugs, preventing them from coming into contact with the taste buds. Especially the sugar coating, its thick and sweet taste can greatly reduce children’s resistance to taking medicine. Film coating can also achieve good masking effects through special designs or by adding sweeteners.
Improves the Swallowing Experience
Many people have experienced difficulty swallowing medication. Uncoated tablets have a rough surface and sharp edges, making them likely to get stuck in the throat or cause a sensation of a foreign object.
Coated tablets have a smooth surface, which reduces friction between the tablet and the throat when swallowing, making them easier to swallow.
However, you should note that because the sugar coating is thick, it significantly increases the tablet’s size. So it may actually make tablets harder to swallow.
Easy to Identify
Some uncoated tablets look very similar and can easily be confused, leading to medication errors. You can use different-colored coatings to make the tablets easier to distinguish. This helps patients and healthcare professionals reduce the risk of medication mix-ups.
Enhances Patient Acceptance and Brand Trust
Uncoated tablets have a rough, dull surface. Coated tablets have a smooth surface and look more professional. This enhances patients’ trust in and favorability toward the brand.
In addition, coating provides uniform color, gloss, and branding, making the product more appealing and recognizable. This helps enhance your brand image and product premium.
Value of Tablet Coating in Production and Distribution
Improve the Production Environment
Uncoated tablets are prone to generating drug dust due to friction during bottling or packaging. This can result in the loss of active ingredients and contaminate your equipment, forcing you to increase the frequency of cleaning. Some API dusts can also pose health risks to operators.
The coating completely encloses the tablet cores and helps minimize tablet dust generation during handling, packaging, and transportation. However, the sugar coating may still crack or flake off due to impact or friction.
Improve Tablet Flowability
Coated tablets have a smooth surface. It can reduce friction between tablets and with the packaging machine’s conveyor tracks, minimizing the risk of jamming, sticking, and stacking. This can contribute to smoother tablet handling and improve packaging efficiency.
Reduce the Risk of Cross-Contamination
If your factory uses shared production lines for several product types, fine dust from the surfaces of uncoated tablets can easily accumulate inside the equipment. If cleaning is not thorough, this can lead to cross-contamination.
Coated tablets have a protective layer on their surface. So they can significantly reduce the risk of cross-contamination during manufacturing.
Unique Value of Different Coating Types
The above are benefits shared by most coating types. But coatings with different functions also have their own unique advantages. Here are two common types of functional coatings listed for your reference.
Enteric Coating
Some anti-inflammatory drugs can irritate the stomach lining. Long-term use may even lead to gastric erosion or ulcers. While some medicines are unstable in acidic environments. Examples include aspirin and proton pump inhibitors.
Enteric-coated tablets do not dissolve and release the drug in the stomach. They dissolve and release the drug only when they reach the intestine, where the pH level rises. This coating reduces the drug’s irritation to the stomach. It also helps ensure the drug is released at the appropriate site and enhances its efficacy.
Controlled-Release Coating / Slow-Release Coating
When you take some medications, their concentration in the blood rises rapidly over a short period of time, which may cause side effects. Controlled-release coating enables the slow, sustained release of the drug, maintaining stable blood levels and reducing side effects.
Controlled-release coating can also prolong the duration of drug action and reduce the frequency of dosing. This helps reduce patients’ reluctance to take medication.
If you would like to learn more about tablet coating process, please click here.
FAQ
Do all Tablets Need to Be Film-Coated?
Not all tablets require a coating. Some fast-acting medications, effervescent tablets, or orodispersible tablets do not require coatings. Whether a coating is necessary depends primarily on the drug’s properties and clinical needs.
Tablets with an unpleasant taste or those sensitive to light or moisture require a protective coating. Those that irritate the stomach require an enteric coating. Effervescent tablets dissolve upon contact with water and are not suitable for coating.
Are Tablet Coatings Safe?
Many coating materials are internationally recognized as medical excipients and have been approved for use by the U.S. FDA. They must meet strict purity and content standards before they can be marketed. Tablet coatings produced in compliance with regulations are safe.
But there are a very small number of bans on specific dyes. We recommend that you check the relevant local regulations when selecting coating materials.
What Are Tablet Coatings Made of?
Coatings are primarily composed of medical excipients such as polymeric film-forming agents, plasticizers, and colorants. Common film-forming agents include HPMC, PVA, and acrylic resins. These substances are odorless, tasteless, and non-irritating. Sugar coatings usually use sucrose, wax, and talc.
Do Coated Tablets Take Longer to Work?
Standard coatings dissolve in the stomach within a few minutes and almost do not affect the onset of action. Sustained-release or enteric-coated tablets take longer to release the drug in the intestines. Although the onset of action is slower, the effect is more consistent and long-lasting.
Is the Plastic Coating on Pills Bad for You?
The plastic coating on tablets is a medical polymer excipient. It is not comparable to common consumer plastics and is widely considered to be free of microplastics. It is composed of natural or synthetic macromolecules such as cellulose.
Standard coatings dissolve in stomach acid. The material itself is not absorbed by the body and is safely excreted. Only a small number of insoluble coatings are excreted intact. Compliant products are safe to take.
Final Thoughts
If you want to order tablet coating machines, just contact us. Pilotech is a manufacturer of tablet coating machines. We also have granulators and spray dryers. We have over twenty years of production experience and can provide you with professional services.