The firm, a unit of chemicals supplier International Specialty Products (ISP), said the laboratory will provide industry customers with capacity to develop drug pellets and evaluate excipients and coatings, including its Advantia range.
Stuart Porter, senior director of global pharma applications R&D explained the expansion is motivated by recognition that: “Using multi-particulates as a way to formulate reliable and consistent modified-release dosage forms is of increasing interest in the pharmaceutical industry.
“ISP is installing new equipment in order to work with our customers to fine-tune pellet formulations in a lab-scale environment,” continued Porter, adding that the new offering builds on coating and polymer expertise available at the lab.
Pills in Brazil
And, while ISP already provides similar services at its facilities in the US and India, the high level of demand for this type of tablet production expertise in Brazil makes it a particularly attractive market.
Sandra Soares, ISP’s Latin America spokeswoman, explained that: “In Brazil pharmaceutical formulation scientists welcome technical support services that ultimately lead to robust solid dosage forms.
“Adding new equipment at our Sao Paulo laboratory positions ISP Pharmaceuticals as a major supporter of multiple types of oral solid dosage forms that meet the specific needs of pharmaceutical companies in the region.”
Spheronisation
Spheronisation is, as the name suggests, a process by which liquids and solids are combined to make spherical pellets. The approach is becoming a popular method of solid-dose manufacturing as, increasingly, pharmaceutical firms recognise its advantages.
Foremost among these attributes is that the pellets it produces, usually in the 0.5-1.5mm size range, can be easily compressed into tablets or capsules, providing significant flexibility.
Aside from this extrusion spheronisation produces hard pellets with low friability that have low surface to volume ratios that allows for uniform coating, which is an advantage in the development of modified release formulations.