The new technology - known as SugaPolish FSC – is based on Beneo’s galeniQ excipient, which is a pharma grade of the sugar-alcohol isomalt that is designed as a replacement for tradtional sugar-based tablet coatings.
The excipient is a dry-milled, homogeneous, sugar-free blend that is designed to accelerate the coating of pharmaceutical tablets and nutraceutical dosage forms.
The German firms claim it is compatible with all open and closed coating systems and that it can be used to produce shiny, draée-like tablets – think M&Ms – in a process with a total coating time of less than 70 minutes, including waxing steps.
The companies also claim that undesired taste and odour characteristics of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) are masked by the coating with testing confirming that moisture absorbance is reduced in comparison with other films on the market.
Maj-Britt Cepok, pharma product manager at Beneo said: “We are delighted to work with an experienced partner in coating solutions,” adding that “both companies’ expertise in coating technologies are a perfect fit.”
SugaPolish will be offically launched later this year.
Pharma
Beneo has been steadily building its pharmaceutical business since launching its galenIQ 981 excipient for pharmaceutical industry applications in 2009
The idea was to replace coating agents like sucrose, which, while effective, have some production drawbacks, primarly the length of time it takes to complete the coating process on the factory floor.
galenIQ’s qualities are derived from sucrose in a two-stage production process . First, sucrose is converted to the disaccharide 6-0--D-glucopyranosyl fructose - or isomaltulose - a in an enzymatic transglucosidation process then it is hydrogenated.
This hydrogenation converts it into a mixture of the stereoisomer disaccharide alcohol 1-O--D-glucopyranosyl-D-mannitol dihydrate and 6-O--D-glucopyranosyl- D-sorbitol (1,6-GPS).
Modifying the ratio of each compound alters the excipient’s properties.