Package making – Methods – Forming or partial forming a receptacle and subsequent filling
Patent
1991-07-03
1993-11-16
Culver, Horace M.
Package making
Methods
Forming or partial forming a receptacle and subsequent filling
53469, B65B 102, B65B 112, B65B 4356
Patent
active
052612112
DESCRIPTION:
BRIEF SUMMARY
The present invention relates to a method for manufacturing of capsules filled with a medical substance essentially in powder form, which capsules are intended to be implanted under the skin and from which the medical substance will diffuse into the blood circulation through the wall material of the capsules. Intended uses are i.g. dosage of hormones, especially contraceptive hormones as well as of antabus agents.
A problem in the dosage of contraceptive hormones has been above all the small amount of the hormone substance to be portioned accurately in powder form into the small-sized capsules. The amount of substance diffusing from the capsule is proportional to the amount of substance in the capsule and therefore, to assure a correct and in all cases a truly predictable liberation, the capsules should include exactly the same amount of substance. In the said hormonal use, the tolerances allowed are .+-.5%, which accuracy is extremely difficult to reach with the prior used manual dosing. The manual dosing method is, naturally, also a very expensive stage in the production of the capsules because of the great need of human workforce.
The invention relates to providing a totally automatic manufacturing process for subcutaneous capsules filled with a medical substance, whereby the uniformity of the end result is essentially better than that of corresponding prior art processes, involving partly manual stages.
In capsule production the starting point is a tube for forming the casing of the capsule, and for which a suitable material is a silicone plastic. The diameter of the tube for manufacturing of hormone capsules is 1.5 mm. The tube is fed to the capsule manufacturing line as continuous lengths from a suitable apparatus. At the starting point of the capsule manufacturing line, the tube is cut into capsule blanks of a suitable length, e.g. to lengths of about 34 mm.
The said blanks are then arranged into a row formed by several blanks. One row may comprise e.g. 12 blanks. The position of the blanks is advantageously chosen in conformity with the handling positions of the tube in the preceeding cutting device One of such rows is advantageously joined together and it will then form a handling unit for the next process stages. In order to assemble this handling unit row it is possible to use a means to keep the blanks in their prescribed positions and with the help of which the handling unit row is transferred from one stage to another in the process, as well as positioned for each process stage. The said means can advantageously be a cassette of a clamping claw structure where the claws are in a mutual spring loaded clamping contact and where mutually co-operating indentation slots have been formed on the contact faces of the claws in order to form through holes for receiving the capsule blanks. The claws are made to retract from each other against the said spring load to receive the capsule blanks. The operation of the said cassette is advantageously synchronized with the capsule blank cutting device.
To make the capsule blank fillable, one of its ends has to be sealed. In the apparatus according to the application, this stage is carried out so that one end of the tubes forming the capsule blanks receives a small amount of glue, e.g. a silicone glue, that adheres well to the tube material forming the capsule wall. The glueing is carried out by using a very thin nozzle needle inserted to a depth of about 1.6 mm in the capsule blank. The glue is discharged from the nozzle simultaneuously when the nozzle needle is rotated and extracted. By adjusting the speed by which the nozzle needle is extracted it is possible to regulate the amount of glue remaining in the capsule blank. This possibility is utilized in the process according to the application to eliminate the impacts of the viscosity fluctuations of the glue, by monitoring the load on the glue pump and regulating the speed by which the nozzle needle is extracted in relation to the load. A high viscosity glue, discharged slowly from the needle, will load the
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Hartzell Rolf
Helle Timo
Lankinen Pekka
Nieminen Pekka
Culver Horace M.
Huntamaki Oy
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