Cultivation of mammalian cells for the generation of therapeutics requires the use of cell culture media which is a defined mixture of nutrients including carbohydrates, amino acids, lipids, vitamins, and inorganic salts. Its composition influences the cell density, yield, and quality of the molecule expressed. These chemically defined cell culture media are manufactured as powders since they offer advantages of storage, handling and stability. To prevent de-mixing of the powders and maintain homogeneity, these powders are milled down to small particle size ranges. However, this small particle size allows for inter-particle forces to impact powder flow properties, and decreases the surface area available to dissolution. Hence a method is required that improves these powder parameters, without altering their composition. A deeper understanding of the dissolution mechanism of multi component mixtures like cell culture media is also needed. Here, cell culture media granules, generated from homogeneous powders by roller compaction are evaluated. The granulation process did not alter the composition of the media and properties of solutions generated thereof. The analysis and comparison of the dissolution profile of powder and compacted media enabled the calculation of the actual surface area available to dissolution. The improvement in granule dissolution can be attributed to dispersion and disintegration of the granules on wetting increasing available surface area. Decrease in inter-particle forces in granules also improves flow-ability properties. Surface character and pores on the granules further augments the improvement in dissolution. (C) 2016 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.