Predicting Performance of Medicines: Disintegration and Dissolution of Pharmaceutical Tablets

The manufacturing and process engineering of medicines such as tablets involves a complex sequence of individual processes, to generate the final oral solid dosage form (tablets or capsules). In recent years, much research has been conducted to generate understanding and predictive modelling for these processes, and this expanding knowledge is now making a real difference to the design, scale-up and troubleshooting of these manufacturing processes within the industry. However, there remains a lack of understanding of how these products perform after they are made, and in particular, it is difficult to predict how these tablets and will dissolve and disintegrate, to deliver medicines to the body. Increasingly, there is a need to engineer medicines to provide extended release over a long time, and this further complicates the problem.

The aim of the research project is to study in depth the tablet dissolution and disintegration process. The student will conduct experimental investigations to develop mechanistic understanding, and there will also be potential to apply computational methods to develop predictive models for tablet performance.