A 'compression toolbox' has been developed to allow formulators to assess different compression tooling (surfaces and coatings) during a single compression run, to identify tooling that reduces or eliminates sticking. The 'compression toolbox' has been used for several formulations containing compounds where sticking has been seen during development, where it has identified tooling types that do not exhibit sticking, demonstrating that the 'toolbox' is a useful tool for de-risking sticking early in development. This study has shown that multiple tooling coatings/surfaces can be used on a rotary tablet press at the same time, allowing the formulator to assess the likelihood of sticking on a range of different tooling coatings/surfaces using just one drug product batch, and therefore minimising cost, time and variability of having to run different coated tooling individually. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.