Co-processed excipients for DC: pharmaceutical applications, manufacturing techniques, and critical quality attributes.

The widespread adoption of direct compression has increased the performance requirements for pharmaceutical excipients. While single excipients often fail to meet these multifaceted demands, co-processed excipients integrate multiple components through specialized processes to create superior multifunctional systems, thereby emerging as a pivotal solution for advancing DC formulations. This review systematically summarizes recent advances in CPEs, outlining their applications in modulating drug release, improving compressibility, and enhancing compatibility with moisture-sensitive drugs. It further elucidates the structure-performance relationships of various manufacturing techniques and analyzes the decisive role of key material attributes in dictating product performance. This review aims to offer valuable theoretical guidance for the future development and application of high-performance CPEs.