What are the raw materials required for pharmaceutical industry?

Pharmaceutical raw materials are the substances that are used to manufacture wide range of drug formulations, tablets, capsules, injectable etc. The raw material used in the pharmaceutical industry are consisted of three major parts, they are:

• API
• Excipients
• Packaging

Pharmaceutical industry has a lot of constraints and specialties which make it stand on a completely differents scale than any other industries. Being closely related to the medical field and also complementary to it, the pharmaceutical industry needs utmost care and precision in each and every aspect of the field ranging from collecting the raw materials to getting the final product ready for supply in the market.

API

API refers to Acetive Pharmaceutical Ingredient. This material will become the active parts or the final form after the manufacturing, process or packaging process. Active ingredients provide pharmacological activity or other direct effects in the diagnosis, treatment, remission, treatment or prevention of diseases, so as to affect the tissues and functions of human or animals. Only if it is made into pharmaceutical preparation can it become a medicine for clinical application. So precision and accuracy are a must for the raw materials used for making the API. API is the effective component of medicine.

Excipients

Excipients are also called drug carries. They are the carrier materials and are definitely part of any drugs. It is a commonly known fact that the drugs we use contain only a very tiny part of actual drug that effects the bodily changes. The remaining parts only a carrier which we call the excipients in pharma terms.

The pharmaceutical raw materials used for the excipients include solvents and other carriers which are capable of carring the actual drug. This excipient should not affect the chemical features of the API.

Packaging

Even the packaging in the pharmaceutical industry have to be prefect and precise. Raw material used for pharmaceutical packaging ainclude plastic &polymers, glass, paper, aluminum foil and paper boards etc. These are used in making most of the packaging used in pharma. Because of the diversified products being used as raw materials, even packaging is made a separate category.