Gattefossé is expanding its pharmaceutical excipient portfolio with the commercial launch of Vitamin E TPGS and the introduction of a new range of solid surfactants intended to support formulation of poorly water-soluble drug candidates.

Vitamin E TPGS is being added to Gattefossé’s existing portfolio through a partnership with PMC Isochem, a French manufacturer specializing in complex chemistry and pharmaceutical-grade Vitamin E TPGS. Gattefossé said the collaboration combines PMC Isochem’s manufacturing capabilities with its own formulation expertise and international commercial network. The excipient broadens Gattefossé’s existing offering of oral surfactants, which includes the Gelucire range and Labrasol ALF. Vitamin E TPGS has an HLB value of approximately 17 and can serve as both a solubilizer and a permeation enhancer. The company said the expanded portfolio is particularly relevant as pharmaceutical development pipelines increasingly include complex molecules and modalities such as peptides and PROTACs.

For formulation developers, the combination is relevant to oral drug candidates with low aqueous solubility, which can present challenges for dissolution and absorption. Vitamin E TPGS has also been used in marketed pharmaceutical products, giving developers an established excipient option for oral drug-delivery applications.

“By combining this widely recognized excipient with our expertise in lipid-based formulation, we can offer formulators an even broader range of solutions to address bioavailability challenges and accelerate drug development,” says Alexandre Gil, Group Director, Pharmaceuticals at Gattefossé.

PMC Isochem’s Chief Business Officer, Pierre Charrier, says the partnership will make its Vitamin E TPGS technology available to a wider pharmaceutical customer base while combining the companies’ respective manufacturing and formulation expertise.

Alongside the Vitamin E TPGS launch, Gattefossé is previewing a new family of powdered surfactants designed for use in oral solid dosage forms. The range includes LabraSolid, a solid version of Labrasol ALF, and GSolid, a solid form derived from the company’s Gelucire technology. Gattefossé is also developing Vitamin E TPGSolid in collaboration with PMC Isochem as a solid version of Vitamin E TPGS.

“With LabraSolid and GSolid, we wanted to bring the benefits of our well-established surfactants into a format better suited to today’s pharmaceutical development challenges,” says Elise Dauphin-Chanard, Application Laboratory Manager at Gattefossé.

The products are supplied as free-flowing powders and are being developed for applications including tablets, hard capsules and sachets. According to Gattefossé, the format is intended to make it easier for formulators to incorporate surfactant functionality into solid dosage formulations.

The products are aimed at helping address solubility and permeability limitations associated with poorly water-soluble active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Such formulation challenges are increasingly important during early development as companies work with drug candidates whose physicochemical properties can complicate oral delivery.

Rather than requiring formulators to work with conventional liquid or semi-solid surfactant formats, the new Solid range is intended to bring similar functionality into powders that can be incorporated into oral solid dosage manufacturing processes.

Gattefossé has begun providing samples of the Solid range to pharmaceutical companies for assessment in early-stage formulation programs. The company said the new materials are designed to give formulation scientists additional options for improving solubility and permeability while developing conventional oral solid dosage forms. Gattefossé will showcase these innovations for the first time at CPHI Milan, taking place October 6-8, 2026, at booth 1D66.

For more information, visit www.gattefosse.com.