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Pharmaceutical Manufacturing and Packing Sourcer
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We have all experienced the terrible taste of some medicines, and most people just grin and bear it. But for some segments of society, such as the very young and the very old, the bad taste will result in the medication not being taken as often as it should, or even not at all. This presents the formulation scientist with a serious problem: how can this medicine be formulated to taste better? Making it taste better is known in the industry as 'taste masking', and there are several different ways to achieve this.
Taste masking can be divided into three different mechanistic approaches:
1. Hide the taste - do something that covers it up
2. Change the taste - do something to make it taste different
3. Reduce the taste - do something so that the drug does not dissolve in the mouth so that it cannot be tasted
Which method will work best depends on a number of variables, including: the type of formulation; how bad the API tastes; what type of taste the API has; and what type of release profile is needed once it has been swallowed. Often multiple methods are combined to give the desired result.
Hide the Taste
Cover the Taste with Pleasant Flavours
This is probably the oldest, best known and most common method. However, except for certain guidelines, the selection of the masking flavour is predominantly done by trial and error (1,2). For example, aspartame reduces the bitterness of acetaminophen, fenchone can mask the taste of eucalyptus oil, and a combination of sugars, apple flavours and amino acids reduce the bitterness of vitamins. Remington's (3) has an excellent summary of flavours and their uses, and includes discussions based on the main objectionable flavour categories of salty, bitter, sour and oily. The main limitations of this approach are that there may not be a suitable masking flavour and that people's perception of taste varies dramatically, so that what masks the taste for one person may not work for someone else. Therefore this is an intrinsically subjective approach. |
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Industry Events |
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4th Annual Patient Recruitment and Retention in Clinical Trials
13-15 October 2008, Amsterdam
Patient recruitment
is now consuming thirty percent of clinical trial time - more time than any
other clinical trial activity - and almost half of all trial delays result from
patient recruitment problems.
As the
recruiting culture becomes more sophisticated and the forces affecting patient
enrollment grow more numerous and complex, pharmaceutical companies are
striving to discover new strategies to facilitate enrollment in clinical
trials.
With
increasing industry pressure to develop, test and market greater numbers of new
drugs faster, pharmaceutical companies need to perform clinical trials as
quickly as possible. Inefficient patient recruitment processes is a formidable
barrier to pharmaceutical companies' success in launching new products.
Improving the patient recruitment process is imperative to avoid wasted
investments and eliminate costly delays in bringing new drugs to market --
today and even more so in the not-so-distant future. Improved patient
recruitment presents one of the largest opportunities for pharmaceutical
companies to eliminate delays in clinical trials, thereby making it possible to
reduce time to market. With patent time limits and large overheads
meaning that any delays in the development timeline can be disastrous, a good
understanding of how to successfully recruit patients for trials is vital for
any company looking to succeed.
More info >> |
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News and Press Releases |
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Biovian expands - and invests in new capacity
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