12 billion tablets and capsules – that is the capacity of the most modern solid dosage form production facility in Germany today: Pfizer in Freiburg can manufacture 12 billion tablets and capsules every year. Unimaginable? Well, theoretically, you could stack them on top of each other – and end up with a column 60,000 kilometres high. Laid end to end, the pills from Freiburg would circle the earth one and a half times.
But what is really impressive is that each and every one of these tablets and capsules is not produced by chance, but with surgical precision – dosed, pressed, controlled. Millions of times a day. Every second. Welcome to the engine room of mass medicine.
Solid dosage forms are among the most commonly used medicines worldwide. Hundreds of billions of tablets and capsules are manufactured every year. The Swiss manufacturer Lonza alone produces around 250 billion capsule shells per year. The demand is enormous – and growing steadily. Although Europe sets the pace in terms of industry, around 70% of the active pharmaceutical ingredients used worldwide currently come from Asia. But the market is changing: relocation back to Europe and the USA – the latter as a result of rising customs barriers – are now strategic goals.
The contents: more than just active ingredients
The often inconspicuous tablet is in fact a finely tuned composite of solids: the active ingredient often accounts for only a fraction of the total mass – the rest is made up of excipients: auxiliary substances that enable or control the manufacture, stability, dosage or release of the active ingredient and serve as a carrier material. Fillers such as lactose or microcrystalline cellulose provide volume. Binders hold the mixture together, disintegrants accelerate disintegration in the stomach, and flow agents and lubricants ensure smooth processing. The film coating also fulfils more than just aesthetic functions – it protects, masks bitter tastes and can specifically control the release of the active ingredient.
Capsules, on the other hand, consist of two parts: the shell and the filling. The shell, made of gelatin or HPMC (hydroxypropyl methylcellulose), is usually not manufactured by the drug manufacturer itself, but is sourced from suppliers. It consists of around 13 to 16% water, plus plasticisers, colourings and preservatives. The filling is often a powder mixture, but can also consist of pellets or, in the case of soft capsules, even liquid or oily substances.
The manufacturing process: from powder to precision product
The journey to the finished tablet begins small: with powder. First, the active ingredients and excipients are precisely weighed and mixed – in high-speed mixers or drum mixers. If necessary, the powder is pre-ground and sifted – for example, using mills and sifting machines such as those on display at POWTECH TECHNOPHARM 2026 in Nuremberg.
Depending on the flow properties of the powder, granulation follows: wet granulation (with binder solution and fluidised bed drying) or dry compaction (roller compactors, followed by comminution). Alternatively, direct compression can also be used – but only if the powder properties are excellent.
The heart of the process is tableting: Modern rotary presses produce over 1 million tablets per hour. With 70 to 80 punch stations, they work like rotating punch presses – a new tablet is produced with every cycle. Sensors continuously monitor the pressure, weight and thickness of each individual tablet, and NIR spectrometers are increasingly being used to analyse the active ingredient content – an inline quality control in high-frequency mode.
Finally, the tablets are often coated in drum coaters that function like rotating baking drums. They are then packaged, usually in blister machines, and everything is documented – GMP-compliant, batch-clean and traceable.
