GASTRORETENTIVE DELIVERY - Box-Behnken-Designed Gastroretentive Floating Tablets of Famotidine
Mohit Kumar, MPharm, Parijat Pandey, and Harish Dureja, PhD, develop and characterize a single-unit, floating controlled drug delivery system of famotidine hydrochloride using a blend of natural polymer and synthetic polymer along with a gas-generating agent by applying Box-Behnken design.
SPECIAL FEATURE - Bioavailability & Solubility: A Demand for Enhanced Technologies & Materials is Spurring Innovation
Contributor Cindy H. Dubin spoke with several contract research/manufacturing organizations on how they are successfully overcoming solubility/bioavailability challenges, such as matching APIs to formulations and choosing the best excipients.
MARKET BRIEF - Miniaturizing Healthcare - From Microelectronics to Nanobiosensing
Cecilia Van Cauwenberghe, MS, Technical Insights Senior Research Analyst, Frost & Sullivan, reports that the proliferation of lower cost microfluidics-based genomics tools offering improved capabilities and allowing more access to end-users is expected to drive this technology for pharmaceutical and biomedical research throughout the next 5 years.
REGULATORY GUIDANCE - Staying on Top of FDA Guidance for Industry - Training Webinars Foster Transparency & Collaboration
Frost & Sullivan recently tuned into three webinars that were considered to be particularly relevant to current hot topics and therapy areas, and then reviews the current trends and needs behind each new or revised guidance document and key insights for potential sponsors.
DISSOLUTION ENHANCEMENT - Dissolution Enhancement Through Factorally Designed Porous Solid Dispersions
Balwan Singh and Harish Dureja, PhD, use mathematical models developed in their present study to predict cumulative percentage of glimepiride from PSDs. These models can then be utilized to formulate PSDs with desired glimepiride release.
STANDARDIZATION TECHNOLOGY - Innovative Temperature Standardization Technology Supports Cell Therapy Clinical Trials
Rolf O. Ehrhardt, MD, PhD, and Maria Thompson, PhD, discuss a unique proprietary temperature standardization technology that is practical for all stages of cell processing and handling. It is currently supporting a Phase IIb clinical trial investigating the efficacy of an immunotherapy treatment for patients with moderate-to-severe refractory Crohn’s disease.
MANAGEMENT INSIGHT - The Specific Peck Response & How Express Scripts Has Changed the Future Course of Drug Pricing
In the book, The Bird, author Colin Tudge describes how his favorite pub once ran out of peanuts and lamely proffered a medley of Japanese…
COMBINATION PRODUCTS - Human Factors & Combination Products
Richard Featherstone explains how manufacturers of combination products are being asked to provide rigorous data on the safety of product when intended users use them. These challenges are not going to diminish, but with a focused approach and some sound HF principles, manufacturers can navigate the challenges successfully.
DYNAMIC LIGHT SCATTERING - Colloidal Gold: The Gold Standard for Drug Delivery?
Stephen Ball explores the importance of particle size in biomedical nanotechnology. Experimental data are presented to illustrate how advanced DLS techniques deliver these measurements for colloidal gold in the nanosized and sub-nanosized ranges.
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW - Ascendia Pharmaceuticals: Sophisticated Formulations for Poorly Soluble Drugs
Jingjun (Jim) Huang, PhD, CEO, and Founder of Ascendia, discusses his company’s unique vision and strategy to provide pharmaceutical companies with a contract research partner that can provide technologies in order to efficiently determine which approach is most suitable for a given molecule.
EXTERNAL DELIVERY - Crisis Management
The saying, “when the going gets tough, the tough get going,” always comes to mind when I hear about the challenges facing many companies, particularly…
TOPICAL DELIVERY - The Importance of the Right Formulation in Topical Drug Development
Vijendra Nalamothu, PhD, reports that the importance of the right formulation and delivery method in topical pharmaceuticals is critical. It can mean the success or failure of drug substance, and getting the preparation right from the outset saves money and time.
THERAPEUTIC FOCUS - Targeted Payload Therapies Radiate Potential to Attack Various Cancers
Kaushik J. Dave, PhD, MBA, and Dragan Cicic, MD, MBA, indicate that alpha-particle emitters, such as bismuth-213 or actinium-225, may be more effective and efficient at killing cancerous cells not currently treated with radiation while simultaneously decreasing nonspecific cytotoxic effects.
SPECIAL FEATURE - Analytical Testing: A Critical Element in Drug Development
Contributor Cindy H. Dubin interviews several industry experts who believe there is intense competition to develop cutting-edge therapies and get them through development quickly to take advantage of patent exclusivity. And one of the critical elements in the drug development process is analytical testing.
FORMULATION DEVELOPMENT - Interactive Web Tool Helps Innovators Match Formulations to Drug Delivery Technologies
Kurt Nielsen, PhD, explains how an interactive web tool designed to help innovators match formulations to drug delivery challenges allows users to assess multiple oral drug delivery technologies in order to establish which may be the most appropriate for their molecule.
THE SECOND QUADRANT - Outsourcing Solubilization: Making Bioavailability More Broadly Available
Marshall Crew, PhD, explores how the contract services and manufacturing market has responded to the opportunity presented by the rising numbers of BCS Type II/IV clinical compounds and solubilized commercial products.
MANAGEMENT INSIGHT - Pharmaceutical Innovation in the Second Machine Age
Derek Hennecke says on one side, we have those who argue that technology is advancing so fast we have achieved a second-derivative rate of change. On the other side are those who claim we haven’t seen true innovation since the 1970s. Which is it?
ADVANCED DELIVERY DEVICES - Innovation Without Change: What is it & What Can it Mean for Pharmaceutical Manufacturers?
John A. Merhige, MEM, and Dan Thayer believe a rigorous, risky development and regulatory process forces pharmaceutical manufacturers into a bad compromise between advances in delivery systems and the time, cost, and risk associated with those advances.
EXCIPIENT UPDATE - Soluplus®: An Understanding of Supersaturation From Amorphous Solid Dispersions
Oksana Tsinman, Konstantin Tsinman, PhD, and Shaukat Ali, PhD, describe the application of a hydrophilic polymeric solubilizer in solid dispersions of a model drug carbamazepine. The scope of this study is limited to understanding of hydrophilic polymers and their behaviors on amorphous dispersions.
LAB DEVELOPED TESTS - FDA Working on LDT Guideline: Implications & Questions
Aish Vivekanandan, Industry Analyst at Frost & Sullivan, reports that in the past several years, it seemed that a cry for regulation of LDTs was falling on deaf years at the FDA. However, after a thorough and intricate letter from the Senate and public outcry for regulations, it seems the FDA is finally taking action.
