Biodar adds to drug delivery stable
Lycored, has announced its acquisition of Karma Pharm in a
transaction that boosts its activities in pharmaceuticals.
Under the terms of the deal, Biodar will fund the expansion of drug delivery R&D programmes originated at Karma Pharm. It will pay Karma Pharm's founders $2 million and an undisclosed portion of shares in Lycored.
Karma Pharm develops generic controlled-release oral drug delivery products as well as added value generic formulations of both poorly soluble and fast dissolving drugs. The company has a number of collaborations in place with Israeli and international pharmaceutical companies.
This dovetails nicely with the Biodar Pharma division, which specialises in the microencapsulation of small crystals and particles and develops drug delivery systems based on multilayer microencapsulation, using fluidised bed film coating technology.
Meanwhile, Biodar has developed a technology for producing vegetarian beadlets that can replace commercially available beadlets based on gelatine. The company has married micro-encapsulation with this beadleting technology to produce free flowing beadlets with good stability and shelf life of the active ingredients. The beadlets are designed for use in the production of single and multi-ingredient tablets or two-piece hard shell capsules.
The oral drug delivery market is estimated to be worth $38 billionand forecast to grow to $52 billion by 2007, notes Biodar.
