Sucrose is commonly used as an excipient in oral pharmaceuticals like syrups, tablets or sachets, due to its properties. It is: soluble; anhydrous, inert, chemically, physically and microbiologically stable; available in a variety of physical forms; masks any bitterness the pharmaceutical ingredient may have; natural and vegetable origin.
Sucrose is widely used in liquid syrups such as cough syrups. Granulated or sieved sugars are perfectly suitable for this application.
The tablets are manufactured either by dry, wet or alcoholic granulation followed by tabletting, or direct compression.
Granulation consists of adding a liquid to a powder blend, followed by drying. The obtained product is then passed through a screen, to form grains which presents a double interest: the active ingredient is closely bound with the diluent, that will secure the dosage; and they get compressibility properties, and can be compressed into hard tablet.
Sieved and milled sugars offer a wide range of grain size, adapted to most active ingredients, to make homogeneous blends before granulation. Microcrystal 120, for example, has a fine and regular particle size and gives new opportunities for drug formulation. In direct compression method, dry ingredients are thoroughly mixed and then compressed into tablets. This eliminates the drying steps associated with the wet granulation method, and thus reduces costs. That means that the diluent used can be directly compressed into tablets. Compressuc complies with the USP/NF acompressible sugar'. It combines good flowability with a high hardness yield, giving hard tablets at low compaction pressure.
Tablets sometimes need a sugar coating, realised by spraying liquid sugar like in confectionery processing. The range of sucrose used for coating is the same as for liquid forms.
ENQUIRY No 53B
Béghin-Say is based in Neuilly Sur Seine, France. www.beghin-say.fr
