Assessing the quality of tablet coating operations on drug production lines is a complex challenge requiring a system capable of identifying the most minor imperfections rapidly and accurately. Similarly, detecting organic materials in such circumstances is also difficult.
Yet in an era when pharmaceutical firms are both focused on improving manufacturing efficiency and under increasing regulatory pressure to improve product quality such inspection technologies are in high demand.
This is precisely the market that Sumitomo is targeting.
The system combines Sumitomo’s near infrared camera technology – originally developed for applications in the semiconductor and optical communications sectors – with an analysis system developed by researchers at Japan’s Kwansei Gakuin University.
Sumitomo claims the technology enables fast, on-the-spot inspection for tablets with coating failure and different tablets accidentally contained, thus eliminating the need to dispose of intended tablets packed with rejected tablets.
Professor Yukihiro Ozaki, from Kwansei Gakuin University, said: “Compovision is an all-new imaging system incorporating a near-infrared camera that Sumitomo Electric has developed by drawing on its comprehensive expertise in various technical fields.
“No near-infrared cameras would compete with this camera in terms of the processing speed and the range of wavelengths. With great user friendliness, Compovision will find wide applications including the analysis of polymers and tablets as well as that of organic materials and food products.”