OYSTAR Manesty is engaged with TeraView Ltd and the Universities of Cambridge and Liverpool in developing advanced instrumentation for the real time control of pharmaceutical manufacturing processes.
This will be approached using the terahertz sensor technology developed by TeraView Ltd to monitor critical quality attributes of pharmaceutical tablets in order to understand, measure and control pharmaceutical manufacturing processes in particular tablet compression and coating. Such quality attributes include hardness, density, coating thickness, moisture content, particle size and temperature. The particular advantage of choosing terahertz technology for this application is its ability to analyse the internal structure of tablets and any coating structure around it in a non-destructive manner.
The in-situ incorporation of terahertz technology into tablet compression and coating systems is completely unique in that no other technology can provide such internal structure information in a non invasive manner in real time. The technology will be able to sample a considerable fraction of the total tablets during production and actively feedback to the compression and coating systems to improve the product quality and reduce waste and development time. Teaming up with the Electrical Engineering Department of the University of Liverpool and the Chemical Engineering Department of the University of Cambridge with their background in advanced signal processing algorithms and terahertz expertise to analyse the information gained, both OYSTAR Manesty and TeraView will be able to generate the next range of advanced tablet processing equipment with the highest level of quality control.
The project is part funded by the UK Government Technology Strategy Board programme in encouraging innovation in novel technologies. This program is particularly orientated to addressing the FDA initiative in Process Analytical Technology for 21st Century pharmaceutical manufacturing.