Custom Dietary Supplement Tablet Manufacturing
A successful supplement tablet must carry the intended ingredient load while remaining small enough to use, strong enough to package and ship, and consistent enough to manufacture batch after batch. Chewable and orally disintegrating products add another requirement: the consumer must also accept the taste, texture, and mouthfeel.
Vici develops and manufactures conventional tablets, chewable tablets, orally disintegrating tablets, bilayer tablets, and other specialized oral-solid formats. Our work is especially valuable when the product has a high ingredient load, difficult powder properties, sensory challenges, or performance requirements that cannot be addressed with a standard formula.
Tablet Formats
Conventional Swallow Tablets
Conventional tablets can provide an efficient, stable dosage form when the ingredient dose, compressibility, and desired tablet size are compatible. The formulation and manufacturing process must be optimized for hardness, friability, disintegration, appearance, and stability so the tablet can withstand shipping and handling and release the active ingredients as intended.
Chewable Tablets
Taste, mouthfeel, flavor, texture, cooling sensation, aftertaste, tooth sticking, and bite all shape the consumer’s experience of a chewable tablet. Bitterness, grittiness, and chalkiness are common formulation challenges. Overcoming them requires careful selection and optimization of inactive ingredients to create a product that tastes pleasant, feels good in the mouth, and performs reliably.
Orally Disintegrating Tablets
ODTs are designed to break down rapidly in the mouth. Development must balance fast disintegration with acceptable mechanical strength, moisture sensitivity, flavor, tablet handling, and the dose that can realistically fit within the format.
Bilayer and Functionally Differentiated Tablets
Bilayer tablets can keep incompatible ingredients separate, create a visually distinctive product, or combine different release profiles or sensory characteristics. Successful development requires careful control of each layer’s formulation and weight, adhesion between the layers, compression sequence, and overall tablet integrity. Because bilayer tablets are more complex and expensive to develop and manufacture, they should be used only when the product’s design or performance requirements justify the added complexity.
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Tablet Formulation Optimization
Tablet formulation optimization begins with understanding the active ingredients, their dose, particle size, flow, compressibility, solubility, stability, and taste—and selecting the right inactive ingredients to support the desired product performance. Fillers provide appropriate tablet size and structure; flow aids promote consistent press feeding; super disintegrants help the tablet break apart rapidly; and lubricants prevent sticking during compression. The type and concentration of each ingredient must be carefully balanced based on the active-ingredient properties and loading, as well as the desired tablet strength, size, disintegration, appearance, and manufacturing performance. For chewable tablets and ODTs, bitterness, chalkiness, grittiness, aftertaste, tooth sticking, and overall mouthfeel must also be optimized without compromising manufacturability. Founded and led by pharmaceutical formulation scientists, Vici brings deep formulation and scale-up expertise to developing tablets that perform as intended, provide a positive consumer experience, and can be manufactured reliably.
Tablet Manufacturing Optimization
Ingredient Load, Tablet Size, and Tooling
Higher ingredient doses can result in an impractically large tablet or require multiple tablets per serving. B tooling is generally suited to smaller, standard-dose tablets and supports higher production output, while D tooling accommodates larger tablets, greater fill weights, and higher compression forces. Vici has both B and D tooling, allowing us to select the best option based on the formulation volume, desired tablet size, compression requirements, and production needs.
Powder Flow and Tablet Strength
A formulation must flow consistently into the tablet press while also compressing into a strong, stable tablet. Some blends flow well but produce weak tablets, while others compress effectively but feed inconsistently, causing tablet-weight variation. Vici carefully balances particle size, density, binder and lubricant selection, glidant level, and order of addition to create a reliable manufacturing process.
Blend and Content Uniformity
High-dose formulations often present flow and compression challenges because many active ingredients were not designed for tablet manufacturing. Low-dose formulations create a different risk: ensuring that a small amount of active ingredient is distributed evenly throughout the blend and across every tablet. Vici’s formulation scientists and manufacturing team optimize the blend and process to achieve consistent tablet weight, strength, and ingredient distribution.
Common Tablet Problems We Address
- Unpleasant taste, lingering bitterness, chalkiness, grittiness, or poor mouthfeel for chewable tablets or ODTs
- Content or blend uniformity for low-dose tablets
- Capping, lamination, chipping, picking, or sticking during compression
- Variable tablet weight caused by inconsistent powder flow
- Low hardness or excessive friability
- Slow or inconsistent disintegration
- Oversized tablets or impractical serving counts
- Formulas that work at benchtop scale but become unstable on production equipment
Tablet Testing and Quality Controls
Testing is selected for the product rather than copied from a generic panel. A tablet program may include raw-material identity, ingredient assay, blend or dosage-unit uniformity, tablet weight, thickness, hardness, friability, disintegration, dissolution when scientifically relevant, moisture, microbial quality, and stability.
In-process measurements help control production; finished-product specifications define the attributes required for release. The analytical method must also be suitable for the product matrix, particularly when multiple botanicals, vitamins, minerals, amino acids, or other unique ingredients are present.
Frequently Asked Questions
Can Vici develop a new tablet formulation?
Yes. Vici develops conventional, chewable, ODT, bilayer, and other specialized tablet formulations around the intended ingredients, dose, performance, and consumer experience.
Can Vici manufacture a tablet formula that has already been developed?
Yes. We review the formulation for compressibility, powder flow, tablet size, stability, testing requirements, and compatibility with production equipment.
What types of dietary supplement tablets can Vici manufacture?
Vici manufactures conventional swallow tablets, chewable tablets, orally disintegrating tablets, bilayer tablets, and other project-specific tablet formats.
Can Vici manufacture high-dose or high-load tablets?
Often, yes. Vici can use D tooling to produce larger tablets when needed. Depending on the formulation, we may also recommend multiple tablets per serving, different ingredient grades, or other formulation adjustments.
Can Vici reduce the size of an existing tablet?
Sometimes. Options may include reducing unnecessary excipients, selecting different ingredient grades, improving powder density, or changing the tablet tooling. The active-ingredient dose ultimately limits how small the tablet can be.
Can Vici improve the taste and mouthfeel of chewable tablets or ODTs?
Yes. We can optimize flavor, sweetness, bitterness, aftertaste, chalkiness, grittiness, tooth sticking, texture, cooling sensation, and overall mouthfeel through iterative prototyping.
How many development rounds are typically required?
Most tablet formulations require two to four development rounds, depending on their complexity. Particularly challenging high-load, chewable, ODT, or bilayer products may require additional work.
How quickly can Vici make an ODT disintegrate?
Vici can formulate ODTs to disintegrate in seconds. The achievable time depends on the ingredient load, tablet size, mechanical-strength requirements, moisture sensitivity, and desired consumer experience.
Can Vici manufacture bilayer tablets?
Yes. Bilayer tablets may separate ingredients, combine different performance characteristics, or create a distinctive appearance. Vici has the specialized equipment and formulation experience required to develop and manufacture them.
Can Vici troubleshoot tablets that cap, stick, chip, or break?
Yes. We evaluate the formulation, raw-material properties, lubrication, powder flow, tooling, compression settings, and process conditions to identify and address the cause.
Can tablets have a custom shape, size, or marking?
Yes. Vici can develop tablets in custom shapes, sizes, colors, and markings to support product performance and brand differentiation. Custom tooling may add cost and lead time.
What testing is performed on dietary supplement tablets?
Testing is based on the client-approved product specifications. Tablet-specific controls may include weight, thickness, hardness, friability, disintegration, assay, uniformity, moisture, microbial quality, heavy metals, and stability.
Does Vici manufacture pilot batches before commercial production?
Yes. A pilot batch can confirm the formulation, compression process, tablet quality, packaging, and consumer experience before a larger commercial order.