Novozymes Biopolymer struck gold in the fifth CPhI Innovation awards with Hyacare, a new, biosynthetic Bacillus-derived hyaluronic acid (HA).
Fermented in a 100% animal-free medium, the host strain produces neither endotoxins nor exotoxins and the water-based manufacturing process is environmentally-friendly.
Hyacare offers the same efficacy as traditional HA but with a greatly improved safety profile, while the spray-dried HA powders has enhanced dissolution properties, which can reduce manufacturing times for HA-containing solutions, says Novozymes.
The Silver award went to Pierre Fabre Medicament for the development of new tools for "green" formulation of active ingredients using supercritical fluids. Formulplex is a single-step process made up of a complexation of poorly water soluble active ingredients with cyclodextrins to increase bioavailability.
After the complexation step, the depressurisation vessel allows attainment of the complex without any residual solvent.
Dr Reddy's Laboratories received the Bronze award for the development of a precatalyst fabrication technology with a range of advantages over existing literature methods. Not only is it very volume efficient, producing 2.5kg of precatalyst from a 20-litre vessel (an increase of 100% compared with the literature method), it also reproducibly provides a crystalline product in high yield (>91% compared with around 75%). The technology has been used to produce 10-rhodium-based precatalysts on >1kg scale for in-house and pharma customer requirements.
Three other companies were shortlisted by the judges: Khandelwal Laboratories for its silver gel treatment for burns, wounds and topical infections; Livchem, for its "user friendly" coupling reagents; and Thomson Scientific for its business development information for the generic and API manufacturing sector.
More information about the three award-winning technologies from Novozymes Biopolymer, Pierre Fabre Medicament, Dr Reddy's Laboratories will be featured in greater detail in forthcoming issues of Manufacturing Chemist magazine.
Next year's CPhI Worldwide, together with ICSE and P-MEC, will take place at the Feria de Madrid, Spain from 13-15 October 2009.
