Pastillation is a widely used technique in chemical, petrochemical and agrochemical industries for the solidification of dusty hazardous powders of chemicals into pastilles (hemispherical solidified units) which eases their handling. in this process, the drops of chemical substances in molten state are deposited on a cooled stainless steel surface for rapid solidification to generate pastilles of uniform dimensions. depending on the weight of the drops and the physical properties (viscosity and surface tension) of the melt, the drops flatten to a certain extent. the solidified droplet, therefore, has the typical “pastille” like shape. the production process for the generation of pastilles is carried out at large scale with the help of specially designed equipments called ‘rotoformer’. the first attempt to use this technology in pharmaceutical field to develop pastilles for drug delivery was carried out in our laboratory. the entire research work has been carried out systematically in three sequential steps. 1. development of controlled release pastilles of doxofylline for improved patient compliance: an in-house laboratory scale device was designed to generate pastilles of doxofylline loaded stearic acid. pastilles formed were characterized for drug content uniformity, size, drug release profile, morphology and contact-angle. the optimized conditions for pastillation were found to be 1.00 cm dropping height, 20 g needle orifice and 4 °c plate temperature which produced good pastilles of uniform size (2.0 ± 0.1 mm) with contact angle above 90°. this multiparticulate system showed very good flow property with uniform size, weight and drug content and was able to sustain the drug release for a period of 24 h . 2. development of pulsatile release pastilles of doxofylline for the chronotherapeutic management of nocturnal asthma: the pastilles consisting of drug, polyethylene glycol and colloidal silicon dioxide were generated using the above mentioned in-house laboratory scale pastillation device. the pastilles were further coated with enteric polymers and a floating layer using conventional coater. it was observed that colloidal silicon dioxide was instrumental in improving the contact angle of the pastilles. the uncoated pastilles released the drug immediately while the enteric coated (coated with eudragit l100 55) pastilles were found to have sufficient acid resistance when the coat is applied with 5% (v/v) triethyl citrate as plasticizer. the enteric coated formulation with additional floating coat further increased the lag time and was found to be more suitable for chronotherapeutic management of nocturnal asthma. 3. in-vivo evaluation of the above mentioned pastilles: the controlled release pastilles were subjected to pharmacokinetic study and the pulsatile release pastilles were additionally subjected to gamma scintillography in rats. the pharmacokinetic parameters of controlled release pastilles demonstrated high hvdt50% cmax value of 3.59 which indicates a strong sustained release or retardation. the in vivo blood serum profile of pulsatile release pastilles indicated that the pastilles coated with enteric and with additional floating coat were effective in significantly delaying the in vivo drug release which is required for chronotherapeutic treatment of nocturnal asthma. the in vivo studies including pharmacokinetic and gamma scintigraphic imaging confirms the ability of the formulations to release the drug only after a desired period of time as specifically required for the treatment of noctural asthma.