Is Hot Melt Extrusion an Untapped Resource?
If you’ve worked in the drug industry for a while, chances are good that you remember Pfizer’s (New York) Rezulin, which was produced through hot melt extrusion (HME). If you work for a major pharmaceutical manufacturer, it’s likely that your company owns a twin-screw extruder. Yet HME has not been a common way of manufacturing drugs, and many industry employees don’t understand the principles of HME or the advantages that the technique offers.
Extrusion is the process of forcing ingredients through an orifice or die under controlled conditions (e.g., temperature, feed rate, and pressure) to form a new material (1). More than 90% of the extruders at pharmaceutical companies are twin-screw models, says Charlie Martin, general manager of Leistritz. Twin screw extruders mix materials better than single screw extruders and are better suited to pharmaceutical processes.