Sugar-coated tablets are very popular dosage form since it has several advantages such as protecting the drug from the environment, eliminates the bitter taste and odor, and enhances the appearance of the tablet.
The tablets are solid dosage forms that typically include active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) and excipients in a crystalline or granular form of powder, which is prepared by the compression process. There are several types of tablets that are available according to the usage and manufacturing process.
The sugar coating of the tablets is sugar-coated with an aqueous sugar-coating solution containing about 5 to 30 % by weight. As the name suggests, this method consists of the application of sugar (sucrose) based coating solutions on the tablets. Sugarcoating is the most usual multi-step coating process used in the manufacture of the tablet dosage form in pharmaceutical industries.
Advantages of sugar coating:
- The major advantage of sugar-coated tablets is that the sugar masks the unpleasant taste and makes it easy to swallow.
- It is inexpensive in terms of running costs as sugar (sucrose) and water are the most common materials used.
- It can retard the loss of volatile ingredients and prolong the shelf life of the drug.
- The coating can improve the robustness of the product.
- The sugar coating provides an attractive and glossy finish to tablets.
- Sugarcoating can enhance the mechanical strength of the dosage form.
- Large dosage forms can be easily swallowed with the help of sugar coating.
- Tablet coating can help to control the drug release rate as the delayed-release (enteric-coated) and sustained-release formulation.
- It is possible to incorporate incompatibility drugs together as a single dose with the help of coating.
Disadvantages of sugar coating:
- The major disadvantage of sugar coating is that it requires different process steps and specialized equipment, thereby increasing the cost of manufacture.
- Tablet coating can interfere with the pharmacodynamic properties of drug formulation.
- During manufacturing, several film defects can occur which can affect the quality of the product. (Motting, capping, chipping and bridging).
- A trained or skilled person is required to perform the process of coating.
- The coating of the tablet takes longer than the traditional process of tablet manufacture.
- Sugarcoating enhances the size and weight of the tablet.
Commonly asked questions on solid dosage forms are as follows.
What are the steps involved in sugar coating?
Sealing of the tablet core, sub-coating, smoothing, color coating, polishing, printing are the steps involved in sugar coating.
What are the different types of tablet coating?
Sugar-coated tablets, film-coated tablets, enteric-coated tablets, gelatin-coated tablets, and compression coating tablets are the types of tablet coating.
What are the advantages of capsules?
The major advantage of the capsule is that the unique mix of ingredients is possible in the formulation by a mask the odor and taste of unpleasant medicines.
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