21. September 2018

Three-dimensional (3D) printing was discovered in the 1980s, and many industries have embraced it, but the pharmaceutical industry is slow or reluctant to adopt it. Spiritam® is the first and only 3D-printed drug product approved by FDA in 2015. Since then, the FDA has not approved any 3D-printed drug product due to technical and regulatory issues. The 3D printing process cannot compete with well-established and understood conventional processes for making solid dosage forms. However,...

15. February 2018

The poor oral bioavailability of many active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) resulting from low solubility is one of the important challenges in pharmaceutical technology. Over the last two decades the number of relatively insoluble drugs has grown steadily. Nowadays it is estimated that approximately 70% of new drug candidates are characterized by poor solubility.

20. January 2018

A solid dispersion is a dosage form in which an active ingredient (a drug) is mixed with at least one inert solid component. The purpose of the inert component is usually to improve the bioavailability of the drug. In particular, the inert component is frequently chosen to improve the dissolution rate of a drug that is poorly soluble in water.

24. December 2017

The preparation of amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) is a well-established strategy for formulating active pharmaceutical ingredients by embedding them in excipients, usually amorphous polymers. Different polymers can be combined for designing ASDs with desired properties like an optimized dissolution behavior.