JPS6045536B2 - hard capsule - Google Patents

Description

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION The present invention relates to a hard capsule, particularly a hard capsule having a predetermined printed indication on its outer surface.

Hard capsules, especially medicinal hard gelatin capsules, generally have printed markings on their outer surface, such as letters, numbers or symbols, indicating drug name codes, pharmaceutical company names and/or active drug content.

This printing is usually applied to an empty capsule before it is filled with a drug or the like, that is, during capsule manufacturing, and is applied to the outer surface of the capsule body, cap, or both. Such printed empty capsules are then supplied to pharmaceutical companies, where they are filled with a desired drug and then provided to general consumers as capsules. By the way, since the printing on conventional printed capsules is applied to the outer surface of the capsule, they are susceptible to various types of friction before being delivered to end users (particularly collisions between capsules, capsule filling machines, and sorting conveyors). This caused the printing ink to peel off from the outer surface of the capsule, causing the printed display to disappear or become unclear.

The present invention has been proposed in order to solve the problem of printing peeling off in hard capsules. This is a hard capsule that prevents ink from peeling off as much as possible.

It should be noted that simply providing an annular recess (groove) along the outer surface of the hard capsule, especially along the circumferential direction of the cap portion, is disclosed in, for example, Japanese Patent Publications No. 44-1290 and No. 45-29316.
However, these are intended to have a locking effect to prevent accidental separation of the body part and the cap part after the capsule is assembled, and are not intended to prevent the print from peeling off. However, there is no disclosure of protecting the printed portion from various types of friction by printing on the recessed portion.

The present invention will be specifically explained below with reference to embodiments shown in the drawings.

As illustrated in FIG. 1, the hard capsule of the present invention has a recess 3 formed in a part of the outer surface of the capsule, and a printing 4 is applied to the outer surface of the recess 3.

Hard capsules include not only gastric soluble capsules such as gelatin capsules, but also enteric capsules made from various cellulose derivatives, and are not limited to medicinal capsules. The recess 3 is not limited to the body part 1 as shown in FIG.
As illustrated in FIG. 3 and FIG. 3, it may be formed on the cap portion 2, or on both the body portion 1 and the cap portion 2, if desired. Further, the recess 3 need not be provided all over the circumference of the body portion 1 or the cap portion 2 as shown in the figure, but may be formed in a portion thereof. Therefore, although not particularly shown in the drawings, in some cases the recess may be designed to be longitudinally elongated along the axis of the capsule. The preferred depth of this recess 3 is about 0.001 to 0.5T! r! n, and the appropriate width of the capsule in the axial direction is 0.5 to 10.
If the depth of the recess 3 is less than 0.001 m, the coating surface of the printing ink will protrude from the outer surface of the capsule (the coating thickness of the printing ink when dry is approximately 0.00 m).
1ro), the effect of preventing print peeling is not sufficient, and conversely, deep recesses exceeding 0.57 m make it difficult to peel off the capsule from the molding pin during capsule molding, making it difficult to manufacture the capsule ( This is undesirable because it interferes with the molding process itself. On the other hand, if the width of the concave portion 3 is narrower than 0.5 mm, printing cannot actually be performed on that portion.
However, it is not necessary to have a width exceeding 10Tr0n. However, since the width of this recess 3 can naturally vary depending on the size of the capsule itself,
077!77! The width is by no means absolute, and may actually be appropriately designed depending on the size of the target capsule, the design of the printing to be displayed, etc. The printing 4 applied to such a recess 3 is composed of predetermined letters, numbers, or symbols representing the drug name code, the name of the pharmaceutical company, and/or the active drug content, etc., as well as arbitrary patterns, as in conventional products. These printing forces are displayed along the circumferential or axial direction of the pussels.

This printing can be carried out directly using a conventionally known capsule printing machine.

That is, the printed part of the hard capsule of the present invention is slightly recessed as mentioned above, but since the stamping roller of the known capsule printing machine is made of rubber and has appropriate elasticity, it can fully fit into this recess and requires special modification. etc. is not required. Since the hard capsule of the present invention has the above-described structure, the printed portion is less likely to be directly rubbed under any circumstances, and the peeling resistance of the printed portion is dramatically improved.

Further, in the present invention, when the printing recess is provided in the body-overlapping portion of the cap portion, the recess also has the additional effect of exhibiting a locking action for the body and the cap.

[Brief explanation of the drawing]

FIG. 1 is a front view of a hard capsule of the present invention, and FIGS. 2 and 3 are front views showing other embodiments of the present invention. 1: Capsule body part, 2: Capsule cap part, 3
: Concave, 4: Print.

Claims (1)

[Claims] 1. A hard capsule with a recess formed in a portion of the outer surface and printing on the outer surface of the recess.