Medical Applications - Pharmaceutical

Medical Applications
Orthopaedic Implants	Bio Chips
Dental	Cosmetic / Dermatology
Bio MEMS	Pharmaceutical
Surgical needles	Heart Valves

Pharmaceutical

Overview
Solid dose production typically starts with the formation of the drug into particles which range in size from 0.1 to 10μm. It is often important to characterise these particles as their size and shape can provide useful information on the manufacturing process. Particle size has also been shown to influence dissolution rate, content uniformity and sedimentation rates.

The next stage of the pharmaceutical manufacturing process is often to form the particles into a granule by using a binding agent. The resulting granules are typically in the range of a few millimetres and show improvements in flow properties. It is useful to characterise the roughness of granules to correlate this with the manufacturing processes. The final element in tablet manufacture often entails applying a coating to the granules which can serve a variety of functions, including protecting the drug from air and controlling dissolution behaviour. It is often a requirement in tablet manufacture to correlate the surface characteristics of their coatings to their dissolution rate.

There are a wide range of requirements for surface characterisation within the pharmaceutical manufacturing arena. One of the more important is in ensuring that the surface finish of pipes and dies in the process area are of a suitable quality to minimise bacterial contamination. Pipes used in pharmaceutical plants can be made from stainless steel or plastic and they can have a range of surface finishes, from 2μm to 0.2μm Rq. The surface finish of these pipes is critical when one considers that a common bacteria cell like pseudomonas aeruginosa, which is rod shape can be approximately 0.3 to 0.8μm wide and 1 to 1.2μm microns long. Poor surface finish on these pipes could allow for bacteria to build up and would contaminate the manufacturing process. Our product offerings are detailed below, however for complete details please contact your local sales representative.

Talysurf CLI range
A range of 3D measurement systems offering both contact and non contact technology for form and surface finish.

Talysurf CCI range
A range of non contact interferometric systems which offer high precision 3D analysis of surface finish.

Form Talysurf Inductive range
A range of contact profiling systems which offer accurate surface finish on pharmaceutical equipment.

If you do not see medical solutions directly relevant to your specific requirements, please contact your local Taylor Hobson Sales Office. We have a highly skilled team of Applications Engineers who can create custom systems for this and many other high precision industries.