ARTICLES BY FRED A. ROWLEY

  • 6/5/2024

    Are you having content uniformity issues in oral solid dosage manufacturing? Your slide gates and valves might not be in the best position with relationship to the powder feeder.

  • 2/12/2024

    As recently as Nov. 2023, the topic of how pre-compression tablet thickness is viewed raised its head once again in an FDA inspection at a generic pharmaceutical company in India. This control is available on all modern tablet presses, yet instructions for its use are vague. This article shares how to use this control correctly and to be better prepared for an agency inspection.

  • 7/20/2023

    Three serious issues have arisen in using tablet press automatic weight control systems. For example, we may encounter excessive start-up sampling when manufacturing small batch sizes, resulting in exceeding the maximum allowable loss and triggering an investigation. This expert discusses this point and two other issues.

  • 4/21/2023

    Over the past few years, the FDA investigators in India have shifted their focus away from laboratory and data manipulation and toward a closer look at tablet press operations. The new interest centers on critical process parameters, the automatic weight control system, and more.

Fred F

Fred A. Rowley

Fred A. Rowley has more than 40 years’ experience in the pharmaceutical and nutritional supplement industries in manufacturing, technical services, and R&D settings, with particular expertise in solid dosage manufacturing and training. He has knowledge of the granulating, blending, tablet compressing, and film coating processes for more than 800 API drug substances. He is and has been retained as a subject expert by law firms, equipment manufacturers, international pharmaceutical and nutritional supplement companies, and compounding pharmacies, and has lectured at the FDA, the ISPE, and at many colleges of pharmacy around the world. Previously, he has been director, manufacturing technical support, for Watson Laboratories; plant manager, tablets and capsules, Weider Nutrition International; vice president, operations, Arnet Pharmaceuticals; OROS operations manager, Alza Corporation; and bulk solids manager, Syntex FP, Puerto Rico.