Ashland Launches New Excipient Solutions for Improved Drug Delivery 

Ashland recently announced the launch of three new pharmaceutical solutions, Plasdone S630 Ultra, Benecel XR and XRF, and Viatel bioresorbable polymers. Ashland is expanding its portfolio to meet formulators’ growing needs and will introduced them at the tradeshows AAPS and CPhI.

John Carney , Vice President, Pharma, said of the new launches “Ashland has significant history in pharmaceuticals, we offer one of the largest ranges of products for oral-solid dosage forms, as well now as having products for the injectables market. Ashland is building on its solid foundation to help our customers find the best excipient and formulation solutions.”

Plasdone S630 Ultra is a new and improved version of copovidone designed to provide better performance in tablet formulations, hot melt extrusion (HME), and in continuous processing. It offers superior benefits compared to the original Plasdone S630 copovodone, including enhanced long-term stability for oxidative sensitive APIs, and the potential to reduce manufacturing costs.

“Through extensive research and process development, Ashland has created a better version of copovidone that will benefit users developing drug products with oxidative sensitive APIs leading to greater long-term stability. Additionally, products manufactured by continuous processing and hot melt extrusion will experience faster throughput and potential energy savings due to improvements in flow and processability,” said Dean Ross, Ashland Global Business Manager, Pharma.

The new 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 dose forms. Key benefits include improved compactibility that enable the production of robust tablets under high-throughput large-scale tableting operations. These new grades of HPMC have a consistent particle size distribution and bulk density that provide better powder flowability, better content uniformity, and lower tablet weight variability.

Miguel A. Garcia, Business Manager, Ashland, said “Our technical group was given the task to redesign these products to meet the increased demands of high tableting speed operations. We also wanted to make a product that would deliver a more consistent controlled-released profile. We are very excited about the new generation of Benecel HPMC.”

With the addition of Viatel bioresorbable polymers, Ashland can now provide a comprehensive line of products for parenteral, controlled-release drug delivery. Seán McMahon, Business Development Manager, said “I am excited by this launch; bioresorbable polymers have been commercialized for more than 50 years, but until now, no manufacturer has offered a single source of three key excipients; Viatel bioresorbable polymers, Pharmasolve, and Aqualon CMC BET used to formulate these revolutionary drug delivery systems that are designed to improve patients’ lives. With the addition of Viatel bioresorbable polymers, Ashland provides a comprehensive line of key ingredients from a single source.”

Ashland Global Holdings Inc. (NYSE: ASH) is a premier global specialty chemicals company serving customers in a wide range of consumer and industrial markets, including adhesives, architectural coatings, automotive, construction, energy, food and beverage, nutraceuticals, personal care and pharmaceutical. At Ashland, we are approximately 4,000 passionate, tenacious solvers – from renowned scientists and research chemists to talented engineers and plant operators – who thrive on developing practical, innovative and elegant solutions to complex problems for customers in more than 100 countries. For more information, visit www.ashland.com/newinpharma.