ABSTRACT
Extrusion/spheronization is a multiple step process capable of making uniformly sized spherical particles. The process is now being widely utilized in the pharmaceutical industry. This is the revision of the original chapter written by D. Erkoboni (1). As a pharmaceutical dosage form, pellets are defined as small, free flowing, spherical, or semispherical units made up of fine powders or granules of bulk drugs and excipients by variety of processes, extrusion and spheronization being one. It is primarily used as a method to produce multiparticulates for immediate and controlled release applications. The major advantage over other methods of producing drug-loaded spheres or pellets is the ability to incorporate high levels of actives without producing an excessively large particle. Mehta and Kislalioglu in their study demonstrated the incorporation of a poorly soluble drug in a pellet matrix up to 40% loading via extrusion/spheronization for controlled drug delivery (2).
