Eurand acquires new fast melt technology
Speciality pharmaceutical company Eurand, based in Milan in Italy, has signed a licensing agreement with Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., of Japan, for a marketed, fast melt drug delivery technology.
Speciality pharmaceutical company Eurand, based in Milan in Italy, has signed a licensing agreement with Kyowa Hakko Kogyo Co., of Japan, for a marketed, fast melt drug delivery technology.
Under the terms of the agreement, Eurand will acquire worldwide pharmaceutical rights to an orally administered fast melt tablet technology as well as the manufacturing processes for the product.
The new fast melt technology will be fully integrated by the end of the second quarter of 2003. The technology is broadly applicable and can be used with both soluble and insoluble products. The tablet is produced using a proprietary system that requires 10-30 times less hydrophobic lubricant than conventional tablet production. The resultant tablet is both hard and durable yet does not impede liquid entry upon contact with saliva. Additionally, the tablet does not contain water-insensitive cohesive bonds between particles to hinder disintegration.
'This technology is different in that while it offers a first class fast melt tablet in terms of speed of disintegration, it is both easy to produce and more robust than other fast melt tablets,' said Gearoid Faherty, ceo of Eurand. The tablets, which are said to be able to handle high drug loading and coated drug particles, can be packed in both bottles and push through blisters.
Eurand intends to market the product in combination with Microcaps, its proprietary taste masking technology, once the fast melt technology is fully integrated. The Microcaps technology efficiently and uniformly coats drug particles with polymeric membranes of varying degrees of porosity using coacervation/phase separation processes. The membranes create an inert barrier between the drug and the taste buds. Microcaps particles can be incorporated into different dosage forms including fast melt tablets, sachets, sprinkles and reconstitutable and temporary suspensions.
'We believe that the combination of our new fast melt technology and our unparalleled taste masking ability allows us to provide customers with the dual advantage of convenient dosage forms that have a superior taste that their patients will appreciate,' added Faherty.