Formulation development is a vital aspect to the pharmaceutical industry, as it is used to address problems with product stability and solubility. Formulation can also play an important role when it comes to the extension of a product-life-cycle.
The company is specialized in the development and application of Supercritical Fluid Technology (specifically supercritical carbon dioxide) to formulation development. A range of advantages exist when using CO2 technology, many of which are still unknown in the pharmaceutical community.
The company is seeking partners with an interest in the development of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API). The company is highly interested in APIs which are New Chemical Entities (NCE) or drugs which have already been approved by regulatory authorities for which novel and improved formulations should be developed. When a patent expires for example, manufacturers may be looking for improved formulations with lower dosing frequency or alternative routes of administration.
Innovative Aspects:
The advantages and possibilities:
- CO2 drying processes are an ideal alternative to lyophilisation and spray drying, as they avoid freeze and thermal damage. Supercritical drying is also faster and requires significantly less energy. Process conditions are much milder than that of conventional spray drying, a big advantage for thermolabile compounds.
- Extracion and purifation APIs from solid and liquid matrices. By using supercritical CO2 a higher penetration power is possible and no residual solvents are left behind.
- Micronisation and crystallization can be used to tune drug solubility, leading to improved bio-availability and/or altered release profiles.
- Manufacturing of encapsulatates with biodegradable polymers. Polymer encapsulation can be used to alter solubility and drug release profiles, to mask the taste of orally administered drugs, to create oral or inhalable formulations for drugs that are conventionally administered by injection, to reduce immunogenicity and to increase drug stability.
Supercritical carbon dioxide technology is innovative by definition since it can overcome a variety of shortcomings of conventional production processes. The result is improved products or product yields, as well as novel products that are not possible using conventional production methods.
