Automation of dissolution tests

Dissolution testing of drug formulations was introduced in the 1960s and accepted by health regulatory authorities in the 1970s. Since then, the importance of dissolution has grown rapidly as have the number of tests and demands in quality-control laboratories. Recent research works lead to the development of in-vitro dissolution tests as replacements for human and animal bioequivalence studies. For many years, a lot of time and effort has been invested in automation of dissolution tests. There have been a number of in-house solutions from pharmaceutical companies and many have created task forces or even departments to develop automation. Robotic solutions with sequential operation were introduced as well as the simultaneous operation concept developed by SOTAX. Today, pharmaceutical companies focus their resources mainly on the core business and in-house engineering solutions that are very difficult to justify. Therefore, it is important to know the basic considerations in order to plan an automation concept and implement it together with a vendor.