Granulation technology launched

The pneumatic dry granulation (PDG) Technology is aimed at replacing the existing development and manufacturing methods to create significantly faster development times and improved formulations at a fraction of the price of conventional methods.

"We have proven capabilities of our technology in collaboration with top tier pharmaceutical companies, showing that in a single day's work with PDG Technology, we successfully created formulations that clearly met the target criteria of our clients, whose own efforts over several months using traditional methods had been less successful," Atacama Labs director of delivery Petri Rahja said in a statement.

The technology is based on a pneumatic dry granulation process, a novel dry method for automatic or semi-automatic production of granules.

Wet granulation technology is the most commonly used granulation method but has its limitations and is seen as unsuitable for moisture sensitive and heat sensitive drugs

and it has a labour intensive process of steps.

According to Atacama, PDG Technology enables flexible modification of drug load, a disintegration time of less than 30 seconds and tablet hardness.

It is suitable for a wide range of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) with different physiochemical properties, including heat labile and moisture sensitive drugs.

Very high drug loading can also be achieved, the company said.

The technology can also be used in conjunction with other technologies such as sustained release, fast release and coating.

Earlier this year, Bristol-Myers Squibb (BMS) signed a license contract to use Dow Wolff Cellulosics' Foam Granulation Technology (FGT) to produce a new tablet that will be used in clinical trials.

The technology produces a foam by injecting air at controlled pressure and volume into the excipient and water.