Ismat Ullah

Ismat Ullah is president of Simple Pharma Solutions (Cranbury, NJ).

Moisture Activated Dry Granulation (MADG) was developed in response to the difficulties experienced with wet granulation, in terms of endpoint, drying and milling. Wet granulation process endpoint is very sensitive to granulation time and shear. The wet granules need to be dried to a narrow range of moisture contents, which is difficult. The dried granules need to be milled, but the milled granules often have either too many fines or too many coarse particles (or both) — an undesirable bimodal distribution.

Moisture-activated drying granulation is a simple and effective process for particle size enlargement.

In this article, the authors evaluated the effects of the granulating binder level, binder type, water amount, and water-droplet size on the MADG process.

The authors explain a process for moisture-activated dry granulation in detail and provide guidance for the selection of excipients and equipment.