ABSTRACT
Tablets are a popular dosage form for oral delivery within the consumer health sector, as well as for ethical prescription products. Over 80% of marketed products are solid-dosage forms. The wide-ranging acceptance of tablet dosage forms probably stems from the fact that they are able to simultaneously satisfy biopharmaceutical, marketing, production, and patient requirements. Biopharmaceutically, tablets can be formulated for immediate or controlled release drug delivery. Additionally, tablets provide for gastric or enteric drug release, and multiple drug substances can be released from a single dosage form.Marketing groups also prefer tablets due to the number of options available for ‘‘branding’’ a product. For example, tablets can be formed in a variety of shapes and sizes, branded with embossing, debossing or printing, supplied in a multitude of colors using internal dyes and/or lakes or externally coated with films containing colorants. Production favors tablets over other dosage forms for their low cost of manufacture, which takes into consideration the cost of the raw materials, and the speed at which tablets can be produced. In the pharmaceutical industry today, tablets can be manufactured at rates of over one million units per hour. Although this rate of output is impressive, compression is still the rate-limiting manufacturing unit operation for many tablet product processes. Finally, patient convenience and preference for
tablets drive the market. They are portable, easy to swallow, and have the possibility of masking the taste of the medicine that is being taken.
