Dow-Colorcon alliance launches excipient for pharma industry

Dow India and Colorcon have launched a new excipient, Methocel DC2 cellulose ethers, for the pharmaceutical industry in India. Designed to address productivity challenges, Methocel DC2 helps pharmaceutical companies to lower manufacturing costs by up to 60 percent and shorten development time, while improving tablet quality, claims Dow India.
 
Over 125 executives from pharmaceutical majors and business partners attended the launch function held in Hyderabad recently that was organised by Dow India and Colorcon, who work together through the controlled release alliance. Industry experts came together to discuss the outlook, trends and future roadmap of the sector. Dr Rajeev Raghuvanshi, vice president, R&D, Dr Reddy’s Labs Ltd, delivered a keynote address on the best practices and trends in direct compression technology, while Dr P V Appaji, director general at the Pharma Export Council of India spoke about the past, present and future growth outlook for the Indian pharmaceutical industry.
 
Ralf Brinkmann, president, Dow Consumer Care, added, “Dow is well positioned to deliver high value solutions and innovations to global Pharmaceutical brand owners and generic brand suppliers that are addressing consumer demand for access to effective, safe, affordable and reliable medicines.”
 
Subodh Priolkar, managing director, Colorcon South Asia, said, “The controlled release (CR) alliance between Colorcon and Dow Pharma& Food Solutions continuously strives to innovate and provide more choice and flexibility for excipients to pharmaceutical majors. We aim to understand their requirement and develop products and services that meet the demands. Methocel DC2 is an innovative product that the CR alliance is bringing to the market place to help accelerate pharmaceutical product development.”
 
Priolkar added, “The CR alliance brings together strong polymer science knowledge from Dow together with pharmaceutical application expertise, customer service and regulatory support from Colorcon that makes this a truly unique alliance, offering great value to our customers.”
 
Dow participates in the oral drug-delivery system – immediate release and controlled release formulations market. Globally, the company holds 5 of the top 10 excipient chemistries applied to a total functional excipients market which are valued at $4.4 billion.
 
Christophe Massip, global marketing director, Dow Pharma and Food Solutions, said, “In the recent years, we have witnessed a tremendous rise in the utilisation of high quality excipients in India, which leads to drug innovations. The rapidly growing pharmaceutical market in India, multiplying demands for novel formulations, accessibility and availability of highly sophisticated technology and the development of new drug delivery systems are further promoting the development of the excipient industry in the country. ”
 
Christophe added, “Innovations such as Methocel DC2 launched by DP&FS are expected to play a critical role in supporting the growth of the Indian pharmaceutical industry by helping the industry to shorten development time and lowering manufacturing costs by up to 60 percent. This latest innovative solution is based on a patented technology and has been designed to help customers enjoy the benefits of direct compression while at the same time improving tablet quality and delivering controlled release performance expected from the proven family of Methocel excipients.”
 
Methocel DC2 product family, enabled by Dow’s patented Designed Particles Morphology (DPM) technology helps pharmaceutical majors benefit from dry powder processing techniques while improving tablet quality and delivering the controlled release performance expected from the proven family of Methocel excipients.
 
Direct compression reduces waste and shortens the development time and manufacturing costs by 60 percent. This polymer is particularly helpful in manufacturing of heat sensitive and moisture sensitive drugs as the wetting and drying steps are eliminated. It also restricts the additional dosage that is added to cope with the loss of viable drug due to the wetting/drying process.