UK-based BioProgress has elected to sell the rights to one of its non-gelatine film technologies after deciding that the program would benefit from being in the hands of a partner.
The company has signed a letter of intent with US company FMC BioPolymer, which specialises in aesthetic coatings, binders, disintegrants, functional coatings, and hydrocolloids and is part of the $2 billion (€1.7bn) chemicals and agriculture group FMC Corp.
BioProgress has developed a series of film technologies based on soluble cellulose, and the company has decided that it must focus its in-house efforts on some of the more manageable projects in its pipeline.
"The NROBE technology is the most challenging of our new dosage forms for a small company like BioProgress to commercialise effectively," said Graham Hind, the firm's chief executive.
Under the terms of the agreement, FMC BioPolymer will get an exclusive, worldwide license to the NROBE dosage form, process, equipment and enabling technology. The US firm take over responsibility for commercialising the system and films.
In effect, FMC is acquiring a full-fledged encapsulation technology, which has already started to attract customers. Last month, BioProgress shipped the first pilot scale NROBE system to Farmasierra in Madrid, Spain. The companies anticipate that a final contract will be completed during the fourth quarter of 2003.
BioProgress and FMC BioPolymer also intend to collaborate on the construction of a purpose-built current Good Manufacturing Practice (cGMP) standard film production facility, believed to be the first such facility in Europe and only the second in the world, at the BioProgress site in Cambridgeshire, UK.
Hind noted that NROBE "is a big proposition for the pharmaceutical industry and it has the potential to change the way drugs are delivered."It is a low cost process that enables tablets to be wrapped in soluble films that can be modified to meet specific dissolution and stability requirements. They can also be produced in virtually any colour or two-colour combination and pre-printed with brand names.
BioProgress' business model provides it with several significant revenue streams including sales of encapsulating machines and film, plus licence and fees for research development services.
The company has various other encapsulation technologies, including TABWRAP, SWALLOW and SEPTUM. In September, BioProgress signed a letter of intent for a distribution deal for all these technologies, including NROBE, with Germany's Harro Hoefliger. This agreement is not due to come into effect until 31 October.