The Oregon, US-based contract manufacturing organisation (CMO) and the German chemicals giant announced the partnership last week, explaining that the plan is to develop novel excipients to enhance the solubility and bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs.
BASF spokesman Andres-Christian Orthhofer told Outsourcing-pharma.com: “BASF is bringing the polymer know into the cooperation, while Bend contributes the drug formulation expertise, especially in spray drying and HME [hot melt extrusion].”
He added that the collaboration – financial terms of which are not being disclosed - is about technology and access to Bend’s customers, explaining that: “Overall the pharmaceutical industry will benefit from novel excipients entering the market earlier.”
The agreement is similar to the one Bend set up with Dow in October last year that focused on developing the US chemical firm’s portfolio of cellulosic drug excipients and combining them with the CMOs manufacturing technologies, particularly its spray-drying platform.
The key difference between the collaborations – according to Orthhofer – is the excipients involved with BASF's accord being focused on combing spray-drying with its range of vinylpyrrolidone based copolymers.
He said that: “Since BASF is working with totally different chemical value chains, our offering is complementary [to the Dow accord] and broadens Bend's toolbox in formulation development.”
Bioavailability a hot topic
Bioavailability is a red hot topic for the pharmaceutical, chemical and contracting sectors at the moment with barely a week going by without news of a new partnership, investment or technology innovation.
Just last week, for example, Cambrex joined Dow and Bend’s collaboration as manufacturing partner and Capsugel launched a new bioavailability-focused lipid formulations development unit.
Prior to that both Patheon and Catalent cited demand for bioavailability services as a driver for recent investments and in November last year Merck Millipore said it wanted to lead the solubility solutions sector.
With this in mind we would like to invite you to the “Bioavailability challenge 2013” a free to ‘attend’ online webinar series on March 20 focused on the difficulties developers face in ensuring their drug candidates are bioavailable.
Our editorial programme will feature contributions from Big Pharma firms Bristol-Myers Squibb (B-MS) and Hoffman La Roche and analysts group Frost & Sullivan will share its overview of the bioavailability services market.
The event will also feature presentations from scientists from Agere Pharmaceutical, Ashland, BASF, Bend, Dow, Capsugel, Catalent and Evonik.
Click here to sign up for the show. See you on March 20.