Generally, there are two common types of medium which are used in pharmaceutical laboratories.

These include:

• Nutrient agar or broth
• Tryptone soya agar or broth

Nutrient Agar

Nutrient Agar is a general purpose, nutrient medium used for the cultivation of microbes supporting growth of a wide range of non-fastidious organisms. Nutrient agar is popular because it can grow a variety of types of bacteria and fungi, and contains many nutrients needed for the bacterial growth.

Tryptone Soya Agar

Tryptone soya agar (equivalent to Soyabean casein digest medium), is widely used for environmental monitoring and for the isolation and cultivation of fastidious and non-fastidious micro-organisms.

Tryptone soya broth is used for sterility testing and as a general growth broth, in microbial enumeration tests, as well as used for media simulation trials.