Evaluation of powder rheology as a potential tool to predict tablet sticking

Tablet sticking, a phenomenon in which material adheres to the surface of tablet-punch face, is an ongoing and costly problem in pharmaceutical manufacturing, and is a significant issue for drug-product formulators. Here, it was hypothesized that the underlying cause of this phenomenon is due to intermolecular interactions between punch face and drug molecules. The present study evaluates powder rheology as a potential predictive technique for these interactions between the Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) and punch face. In this study, we describe a series of powder rheology experiments to estimate the sticking tendencies of five model drugs to five different tablet punch metals. The results have shown that this approach was able to differentiate the five model drugs based on their sticking propensity to each punch metal used. Furthermore, the predicted sticking tendency rank order of the drugs obtained from powder rheology technique was validated by compression studies. The present work highlights powder rheology as a potential technique for predicting tablet sticking during research and development stage. A series of powder rheology experiments was conducted to estimate and predict sticking tendencies of five Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients to five different tablet punch metals. [Display omitted] •Intermolecular interactions between drug and punch initiates tablet sticking.•Powder rheology can be used as a predictive R&D technique for tablet sticking.•Tablet sticking is both drug, and metal surface specific.•Chromium punches are ineffective in reducing tablet sticking for certain APIs.