Powder dosing into blisters for medical devices

Challenge

A customer required a high-speed, advanced solution for precision micro-dosing of drug product into individual blisters, for use in their novel, multi-dose inhaler product. Doses were very small (< 25.00 mg) meaning that even small variations in dose weight were unacceptable. Greater precision in filling was therefore required, along with the ability to modify dose weight for packaging a wide variety of different drugs.

Solution

ITCM designed and developed a completely new, patented dosing system, providing a precise yet flexible solution for high-speed filling of the blisters. ITCM drew upon its experience with reel-fed material handling to produce and inspect individual blisters on-line followed by a heat-seal lidding process to close the blisters.

Benefits

ITCM delivered a solution which significantly improved dose weight accuracy and variation. Believed to be the world’s fastest blister forming and filling machine, the machine combines high operating efficiencies with a faster operating speed. Machine footprint was also minimised to give a more compact solution which is easy to operate and maintain.

With multiple machines in production in Europe and the USA, this solution has provided the customer with the means to achieve significant reduction in the cost of goods sold, allowing much higher throughput with the same level of resources.

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