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Nutrition & Health Services
Nutrition & Health Services

Nutrition and health services for oral solid dosage (OSD) products

When processing nutrition and health products, the special nature of the raw materials must be taken into account, also in order to comply with a clean label. With more than 50 years of industry expertise and superior technologies for the vitamin, herbal medicinal, dietary supplement, pre- and probiotic product market, Syntegon is your ideal partner. We support you in mixing, granulation, fine particle coating, hot melt coating, pellet coating, tablet pressing, tablet coating and capsule filling.

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Key benefits

OSD Customer Centers
Syntegon has four fully equipped Customer Centers in Schopfheim and Waiblingen (DE), Hangzhou (CN) and Minneapolis (USA), as well as a global partner network.
Nutra Services
Our Nutra Services answer your needs for the formulation, process development, and production of OSD forms.
Expertise
No two natural source products are the same. With over 50 years of experience, we have a thorough understanding of product properties and influencing process parameters.

Granules

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Our technologies make sure your granules perfectly meet the requirements of your next processing step – be it fast flow and high density for tablet pressing or capsule filling. We ensure narrow particle size distribution without any oversized granules for your stick pack, a smooth surface for your taste masking process, or controlled release by hotmelt or natural, semi-natural or synthetic polymer coating. We are your partner for wet granulation with fluid bed or high-shear mixers.

Drying, granulating and coating

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High-shear mixing
Homogeneous mixing results, granules of the highest quality and top production performance with short drying times? Rely on our proven Hüttlin technologies!
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Fluid bed systems
The higher your requirements for drying, granulation and coating, the more you will benefit from our Hüttlin fluid bed technology.

Capsules

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The nutraceutical market is highly competitive, with an almost innumerable number of providers. Hence, it is even more important to stand out from the crowd. Products dosed in hard capsules offer nearly unlimited possibilities to create a unique product, helping to establish brand recognition. The wide range of possibilities in colors, appearance (e.g. rough, shiny, transparent) and printing help create an attractive, eye-catching product.

No two products are the same. Especially when processing natural source products, differences or quality fluctuations from batch to batch are possible. Understanding product properties and the influencing process parameters are key for a successful filling process. We offer a wide spectrum of analytical product evaluation tools and use the „Automated Process Development (APD)“ approach on our capsule filling machines – to provide you with the knowledge needed for processing high quality products. If your capsule is difficult to fill, we will granulate the powder. We can also improve the stability, bioavailability, or change the dissolution profile and appearance of your powder.

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Capsule filling, checkweighing and sealing

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GKF Capsylon series

This highly efficient and easy-to-operate machine series for the nutrition and health industry is ideal to fill powders, pellets and granules into capsules.

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GKF Selection series

This modern series provides best conditions for flexible and safe filling of different types of products or product combinations into hard capsules.

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KKE capsule checkweighing series

The precise gravimetric weighing technology and safe capsule handling makes our KKE series the ideal choice for your capsule checkweighing needs.

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GKB 2100 Capsule Sealing

The GKB 2100 hard capsule sealing machine is suitable for both hard gelatin and HPMC (plant-based) capsules by the use of banding technology to seal the capsules.

Tablets

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Tablets are a cost-effective and the most common form of oral solid dosage. During tablet pressing, excipients are often added to nutraceutical ingredients, e.g. lubricants or dry binders. Our tablet presses can compress the highest amount of products without granulation and reduce the need of excipients to a minimum. Our Nutra Services support your development of fully organic and clean label tablets. We can coat your tablets with a wide range of colored, natural, semi-natural or synthetic polymers for a unique marketing approach. Additional tablet coating enables taste masking, delayed release, or ingredients protection and an easy-to-swallow function. Special applications like bilayer tablets are also possible.

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Compressing of powder & granules


Operators of tablet presses often have to deal with poor flow properties when processing consumer healthcare products, e.g. due to challenging compaction profiles and stickiness. The three-paddle feeder of our Syntegon TPR tablet presses supports a proper die filling process with its three level design and elongated infeed. This allows the operator to keep the feeder speed low and reduce the risk of segregation and over-blending. The low feeder speed further promotes powder entry into the die that ensures consist tablet weights. The standard two-paddle feeder design can be retrofitted and offers additional flexibility for challenging products.

Tablet compression

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TPR tablet press series

Ideal for the compression of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical tablets ‒ from R&D and pilot use up to high volumes.

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Success story: TPR tablet press for challenging natural medicines

Metagenics needed a complex tablet press capable of delivering maximum performance, yet suitable for challenging products. Curious how our Nutra Services helped?

NutrApplications & FAQ

Capsule size 000 is the biggest available capsule size on the market for human applications and is very common for certain dietary supplement target groups. Syntegon offers a special portfolio of encapsulation machines that can easily handle these large capsules for applications requiring a maximum product dose. In addition, special enlarged closing pins support proper and gentle closing of the filled 000 capsules.

The following capsule filling machines can be equipped with 000:

Does your current capsule filling process come with statistical control, but needs a 100 % weight check for capsule sorting, including the removal of empty capsules? Or do you just want to play it safe and provide high-quality sorted capsule products to your customers? Then we recommend the use of our Nutra KKE. With its weighing accuracy of +/- 5 mg it is our solution for a cost-effective 100 % capsule weight control in the nutrition and healthcare market. The units can be run in-line or off-line and achieve outputs of up to 232,200 capsules per hour. Need even higher accuracy? Challenge us!

As a result of the BSE cases in the 1990s, the alternative plant-based Hydroxypropylmethylcellulose (HPMC) capsules were born. Demand for capsules of non-animal origin has been increasing ever since, especially in the nutraceutical market, where they have become the standard for dietary supplements. Additional vegan/vegetarian varieties have been introduced to the market. However, different capsule materials lead to different properties (e.g. shape, pre-closing forces, size tolerances) – a challenge when launching a new type of capsule. Thanks to constant improvement and long-standing partnerships with capsule vendors, we have solved many issues and run the widest range of capsule types at the highest level of quality and machine performance.

Final filling weights are among the quality attributes to meet the label claim. Capsule sizes 0/0el and 00/00el filled to the maximum are quite common, since high fill weights enable high contents of nutraceutical ingredient, and make the final product easy to swallow. However, overfilling may lead to improperly closed capsules and/or capsule damage during the closing process. Our patented slide-gate technology keeps product loss to a minimum and improves stable slug formation. Syntegon also offers capsule fillers that support the dosing of slugs that protrude over the lower capsule body, by mounting the capsule closing station directly after the powder filling station. This reduces the potential for slug disintegration and powder loss before capsule closing.

You have a successful product but you can’t meet the market demand? Then it’s time to increase your productivity! If you have worked with semi-automatic equipment, we can help you transfer your product to a full-automated capsule filling machine. The first step consists in analyzing your product characteristics with our lab equipment. Based on your final product specifications, we will propose the optimal processing set-up that best suits all your capsule filling requirements. We can also support you in shifting from external contract manufacturing to in-house production. We will share our experience and knowledge until you get the product running successfully in your facility.

“Won’t work doesn’t exist! There’s always a solution you just have to find it.“ This is the task of our Nutra Services. We have over 50 years of expertise with OSD forms and almost all of the most common and difficult products. While many products can be processed without major evaluation efforts, some require additional features and machine upgrades to overcome the special characteristics of „challenging“ products. We can help remedy poor flowability, stickiness, electrostatics, or temperature sensitivity. We also have the right solution for increasing bioavailability, extending shelf life, changing resolution, improved user experience, all-organic clean label products, or any other unique idea you may have.

 

Looking at the following benefits, it was no question for us to integrate the „slide-gate“ system as standard for most of our capsule fillers and strongly encourage the upgrade on those systems where it is still optional.

  • Less shear forces; gentle product processing
  • Reduction of product loss; increased yield
  • Higher filling accuracy
  • Less dust formation
  • Less cleaning effort; more production time (OEE)
  • Higher machine speeds
  • Improved filling of sensitive and adhesive products
  • Improved filling of powder that does not form compact slug
  • Powder or pellet filling via dosing disc on the same filling station

Our slide-gate technology allows you to run a wider spectrum of products with greater efficiency and quality.

Instead of filling one single active nutritional ingredient (powder, pellet, minitablet, liquid, etc), multiple dosage forms can easily be combined with the right equipment. This provides many new opportunities: restart the lifecycle of an existing product, attract a bigger consumer group, stand out from the crowd, provide a more visually appealing and interesting product from a marketing standpoint, combine actives to enhance effects; improve bioavailability. You can even combine existing single dosage form capsule and tablet products into a single capsule. There are no limits to your ingenuity – and we will be happy to support you in evaluating the feasibility of your ideas, and advise you on suitable equipment.

Large dimension tablets are among the classic nutritional supplements. However, manufacturing is not as simple as it seems. Larger sized tablets tend to stick, which can lead to high ejection forces, especially when no lubricants are added to the formulation. Additionally, effervescent tablets must deal with environmental conditions (e.g. humidity) during the manufacturing and packaging process. An external lubrication system on the tablet press can control high ejection forces and only allows lubrication on surfaces in minor concentrations. This reduces wear and tear of tooling and cams, and improves output rates. We offer you lubrication systems that can be connected to our tablet pressing equipment and are happy to support you in defining the right process attributes.

Our intention in equipment development is to keep things as simple as possible, both for operation and cleaning. It is worth taking a closer look at our state-of-the-art design for our granulation, pellet and fine particle coating, capsule filling machines, tablet presses and tablet coaters. They are robust in both parts and technology, and simple for those who work with the equipment. You will be amazed which amount of time you can save, especially in set-up and cleaning, compared to other machines on the market. We invite you to convince yourself by setting up a hands-on practice sessions at one of our Customer Centers.

Finding skilled personnel to operate your nutritional manufacturing process can be challenging. However, reliable staff is key for trouble-free production. The process quality of the best equipment can only be as good as the operator in front of the machine. Know-how in preventive maintenance and in treating tooling/change parts properly is important to keep equipment in immaculate condition and ensure a long lifecycle with the lowest cost of ownership. We offer a broad spectrum of training services, either in our Customer Centers (hands-on training) or at your manufacturing site.

Sometimes it is difficult to differentiate between nutraceutical and pharmaceutical products. The same nutri-ingredient can be run under a food category or as medicine with stricter regulations, based on its licensing. While expectations for nutraceuticals are increasing, more and more proof of product safety and reproducibility of manufacturing processes is required. One important prerequisite to fulfill the increasing requirements is the use of qualified up-to-date equipment. Our equipment for granulation, encapsulation and tablet pressing fulfills the requirements for pharmaceutical production, especially in terms of cleanability and data acquisition. It allows manufacturing according to GMP requirements. Syntegon offers you the highest quality equipment – for both industries.

Nutrition and health services for oral solid dosage (OSD) products downloads

GKF Capsylon series
GKF Capsylon series

The highly efficient and easy to operate capsule filling machine series designed for the nutrition and health industry.

TPR tablet press series
TPR tablet press series

Ideal for the tablet compression of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical products – from R&D and pilot use to high volumes.

KKE capsule checkweighing series
KKE capsule checkweighing series

The precise gravimetric weighing technology and safe capsule handling make the KKE series the ideal choice for your capsule checkweighing needs.

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Interested in our Pharma Services for your oral solid dosage process?

Interested in our Pharma Services for your oral solid dosage process?

Reach out to our experts.


Head of Department Pharma Services & OSD Customer Center, Waiblingen
Syntegon Technology

Dr. Thomas Brinz
Phone: +49 7151 14-2160
Contact us
Interested in our Pharma Services for your oral solid dosage process?

Interested in our Pharma Services for your oral solid dosage process?

Reach out to our experts.


Head of Department Pharma Services & OSD Customer Center, Schopfheim
Syntegon Technology 

Dr. Marcus Knöll
Phone: +49 7622 6884-121
Contact us