Can you tell us about Ashland and the products and services the company offers to help pharmaceutical companies develop and manufacture oral solid dosage products?
We meet formulators’ needs by providing an unparalleled range of excipients and technologies, as well as longstanding polymer expertise and technical support for oral solids. our knowledge of the structure function of polymers, combined with our extensive product line of tablet binders, film coatings, disintegrants, and drug solubilizers can help bind, coat, dissolve, and effectively deliver complex drug molecules where and when they’re needed.
Our solutions include: increasing the solubility of active pharmaceutical ingredients with low or no solubility, designing modified-release products to meet targeted release profiles, reducing tablet size while maintaining active pharmaceutical ingredient load, improving disintegration time of orally disintegrating tablets, and understanding implications of continuous manufacturing technology for oral dosage production. Our key products include: Benecel™ HPMC, Klucel™ HPC, Viatel™ bioresorbable polymers, Plasdone™ povidone and Polyplasdone™ disintegrants.
Specifically, can you tell us about controlled release matrix formers and the benefits they provide pharmaceutical manufacturers?
Controlled-release matrix formers are used mainly to retard drug release. They do so through one of four release mechanisms; diffusion, dissolution, osmotic pumping, or swelling. Ashland’s offering of controlled release matrix formers includes: Klucel™ hydroxypropylcellulose, Benecel™ hydroxypropyl methylcellulose, Natrosol™ hydroxyethylcellulose, and Aqualon™ and Ashland™ EC Pharm Ultra ethylcellulose. These product lines offer various degrees of hydrophilicity and molecular weight that together provide the advantage of retarding the drug release in a controlled release system.
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Ashland recently added Benecel™ XR and XRF HPMC matrix formers to its controlled release portfolio. Can you tell us about this product? What features and benefits does it provide to users? Are there specific types of oral solid dosage products that will benefit from this matrix former?
Benecel™ XR and XRF are HPMC products with optimized polymer structure and particle morphology that enable the formulation of safe, effective, and robust oral solid controlled-release dosage forms. Key features include; (1) an optimized polymer structure and particle morphology that provide better powder flow and improved tablet strength, and (2) consistent particle size distribution and bulk density that also provides better powder flow along with better content uniformity and lower tablet weight variability. Key benefits include; (1) better compactibility at high tableting speeds which allows manufacturers to produce robust tablets under high throughput during large-scale tableting operations, and (2) finer particle size grades (XRF) that are designed for even higher tablet strength and improved controlled-release profile.
Looking forward, does Ashland anticipate adding or developing additional excipients to its portfolio?
Our customers are developing more combination products and have needs to deliver higher drug loads. We are working on new oral solid controlled release technologies that will enable products with higher drug loads within patient friendly tablet size. We recently expanded our controlled release offerings to include Viatel™ bioresorbable polymers for injectable applications. We have five product families of bioresorbable polymers and plans to continue to expand our product and technical service offerings for injectable dosage forms. Ashland has the largest portfolio of controlled release technologies including HPMC, HPC, HEC and controlled release coatings. Our close customer relationships enable us to identify new opportunities in this area. Currently, we’re developing next generation technologies aimed at improved predictability and robustness in vivo.