Advantages of Direct Compression

Direct Compression is by far the easiest way of making tablets provided the API is suitable.

Only simple mixing and tableting technology is needed. If you have the equipment available for Wet Granulation then you almost certainly have the equipment you need for Direct Compression. It requires only a few excipients, less than for Wet Granulation (for many formulations you can get away with just 3 excipients). No water or solvents are used in the process, meaning that Direct Compression is suitable for water sensitive actives. Also chemical/physical stability may be improved as no heat and moisture are used. Its simplicity means that there is little to go wrong (provided that the API is suitable for Direct Compression), so you only need a few rules to guide the formulation development process.

Direct Compression is the most cost effective tableting process. Capital expenditure on equipment and running costs are lower than for Wet Granulation, meaning that benefits and cost savings can be achieved through:

• Shorter processing.
• Lower equipment / depreciation costs.
• Energy cost savings.
• Lower maintenance costs.
• Savings on personnel costs.
• Higher yield, fewer raw material losses.

There are a few misconceptions regarding DC

• Segregation of the API will occur leading to poor content uniformity of the tablets, especially for low dose API’s.
• Specialist equipment and knowledge is needed for Direct Compression.

In the following pages we want to show how simple Direct Compression really is, and how simple and robust the processes can be with the application of just a few simple guidelines.