GEA presents ConsiGma® FC Lab coater for small tablet batches

GEA unveiled a new tablet coater, the ConsiGma® FC Lab, at the Interpack trade fair in Düsseldorf (May 7–13, Hall 6, C27). The coater is designed for small batches of 0.5 to 1.5 kg of tablets, complementing GEA’s ConsiGma® Coater range. With this launch, GEA adds to its industry-leading AirConnect platform with a coater module for pharmaceutical R&D. Like its sister device, the ConsiGma® Coater, the ConsiGma® FC Lab offers significant advantages for the industry, such as 360-degree spray application for a homogeneous coating, minimal wear, and higher efficiency (90% reduction in material consumption and development times). The new coater is optionally equipped with washing functions as well as containment solutions making it ideal for highly potent active ingredients. , Aesthetic, active and/or enteric coatings for controlled release can be applied to both standard tablets and mini tablets.

New module ensures greater precision and efficiency in small-scale tablet coating processes

Mark Rowland, Director of Product Management Pharma Solid Dosage at GEA, says: “Conventional tablet coaters run for extended periods with large batches of tablet cores. This can lead to abrasion of already applied coating, leading users to apply excessive coating material and thus costly waste. Furthermore, soft tablets can be damaged or broken due to the multiple impacts over this long process time. The ConsiGma coater solves both of these issues thanks to its unique coating concept.” GEA’s new scale-free coater, which integrates with AirConnect fluid bed systems, overcomes these issues and can coat products previously considered impossible, such as unusually shaped tablets. “The AirConnect was developed to meet the pharmaceutical industry’s requirements for flexibility in individual process steps and is based on the proven principle that a single core component can be used for numerous processes by swapping out a range of application-specific modules,” adds Mark Rowland. The new module ensures greater precision and efficiency in small-scale tablet coating processes for companies in the pharmaceutical, nutraceutical, animal health, and coated components sectors.

ConsiGma® FC Lab offers R&D teams the power of GEA’s rapid coating technology on a laboratory scale

The ConsiGma® FC Lab integrates seamlessly with GEA’s AirConnect technology and enables both drying and coating operations from a single base unit. This unified configuration simplifies laboratory workflows, accelerates operator training, and reduces the time required for qualification, maintenance, and calibration. Based on the principles of the ConsiGma® film coating concept and compatible with the AirConnect control module, the ConsiGma® FC Lab ensures precise, uniform, and rapid application of aesthetic and functional coatings to tablets of all shapes and sizes. The ConsiGma® FC Lab offers R&D teams the power of GEA’s rapid coating technology on a laboratory scale, allowing formulation development to begin on the same coating platform used in commercial production. With a process duration of just 6 minutes, development teams can conduct a complete Design of Experiments (statistical experimental design), a method for efficient process optimization, in a single day.

Since the FC-Lab offers the same micro-layer coating approach as the production-scale ConsiGma® Coater, process parameters can be linearly transferred from the lab to mass production. This eliminates the need for upscaling or revalidations, which significantly shortens time-to-market and substantially reduces API consumption (Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients, essential active ingredients in medications responsible for the therapeutic effect).