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Established in 1972, Arnet Pharmaceutical has researched, manufactured, and marketed natural products worldwide. Arnet Pharmaceutical is an internationally recognized contract manufacturer known for its quality and service. Actively, Arnet serves over 70 countries around the world. The Company’s Quality Assurance department works closely with each customer to guarantee compliance and the necessary documentation needed to meet the most stringent standards. Arnet Pharmaceutical is housed in a 130,000 sq. ft. space in Davie, FL, with 400 employees. The facility includes offices, laboratory, manufacturing, and warehouse areas and includes separate rooms for production machinery.
Arnet’s extensive line of products includes a complete range of vitamins, minerals, amino acids, and herbal supplements, in the form of tablets, capsules, powders, and chewables. Over the years, Arnet Pharmaceutical has led the nutritional supplement industry in price, quality, and innovation, while building lasting relationships with the private labels. All formulas are manufactured under the guidelines of United States Pharmacopoeia (U.S.P.), Current Good Manufacturing Practices (cGMP), Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) at the FDA Registered Facility.
How does the CTC fit into your business?
Arnet Pharmaceutical (AP): As the pharmaceutical industry endeavors to enhance its safety and quality standards, while achieving greater production agility and sustainability, there is clearly a growing interest in continuous manufacturing and the potential it offers. Continuous manufacturing provides a robust process, increases product quality for higher patient safety, reducing costs and time to market at the same time. Arnet Pharmaceutical decided to invest in continuous coating back in 2012. We needed the extra capacity and wanted to increase the turnover and uniformity of batches of over 2/3 million tablets.
Which features do you appreciate the most in the CTC? 
ACCELA CTC 500
AP: CTC is the ultimate technology by Thomas Processing, who have been pioneers in continuous coating since 1993. Continuous coating means you spend less time on material handling while executing a faster coating process. With the CTC system, you get the balance of time management and product quality. It provides better coating uniformity, requires less coating for the complete process, and decreases your time requirements to deliver excellent definitions for engraving, bisect, land, and edges. The speed of the machine is phenomenal, processing from 1000 to 2000 kg per hour, depending on the product and the desired weight gain. Easy set up and maintenance are another hallmark of the technology.
How do you manage the switch from batch to continuous?
AP: We did go through some growing pains in the beginning, but we hired experienced operators and went through several training sessions with the techs from Thomas Processing. There were small adjustments to formulas in terms of hardness and friability, but nothing major. These days we can run any product on the CTC that we would run on any standard batch coater.
What is the added value of the partnership with Thomas Processing for Arnet Pharmaceutical?
AP: We met Jim Hahn, VP global sales & marketing at Thomas Processing, 15 years ago and worked with him and Joe Kingsley, senior sales engineer at Thomas Processing, all along. They visited Arnet once or twice per year and the communication was always very honest and open between us. They have been supportive throughout the entire process of buying, installation, maintenance and upgrades. Human relationships are an added bonus in our partnership with Thomas Processing: we have created a climate of trust, esteem and respect.
