I suppose it depends somewhat on who is classifing. The manufacturer
extracts the chemicals from the plants, ores and other basic sources,
reacts and/or blends them, rolls them into balls about 0.1 milimeters
in diameter and coats each with a time release coating. A carefully
measured amount is put in each capsel, tablet or pill. Some of the
finished pills are sold by the ton or fraction of a ton to repackagers
who count out 1000 or perhaps 200 pills and supply these to pharmacies
and retailers. Obviously many companies do some of each of these three
catagories, so drawing the line may require asking which specific
medication or group of medications you are asking about, and which
country you are interested in. It is sort of like defining river,
stream, ditch, creek, waterway, lake, bay, harbor etc as the
definitions overlap. Neil |
