Cafosa's excipient Health in Gum is a mix of ingredients to which APIs can be added. How are APIs added to create a novel
dosage form?
Marc Ribe
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Traditionally, medicated chewing gum has been formulated and manufactured using hot mixing and extrusion procedures, which
involve specific equipment that most pharmaceutical companies are not familiar with. Moreover, the use of heat in this process
prevents many APIs from being considered because of their sensitivity to high temperature levels.
Our Health in Gum is a homogeneous powder excipient produced using proprietary technology. It is a combination of gum base,
softeners and polyols that enables formulation and dry mixing with the API to produce chewing gums by direct compression.
Medicated chewing gum is an interesting option for pharmaceutical companies looking to differentiate themselves by introducing
products that are more attractive to consumers, but that possess the same efficacy as other dosage forms. In particular, the
technology is useful to look at in light of the fact that many people dislike swallowing tablets or other medicines.
Chewing gum is also a convenient drug delivery form because it does not require water intake. In addition, it offers some
well-known inherent benefits for oral health, or as a stress or weight management aid, and can be combined with the therapeutic
action of an active ingredient to give great performance and improve compliance for consumers.
Importantly for pharma companies, medicated chewing gum is an accepted dosage form in current Pharmacopoeias and the ingredients
are compliant with different monographs.
How are common API problems, such as taste masking and solubility, affected by using chewing gum?
Most active ingredients have a bitter and unpleasant taste and in the case of chewing gum, taste masking is of great concern
because the residence time in the mouth is much longer (20–30 min) compared with other dosage forms.
However, similar strategies seen in other oral dosage forms can be used; combining flavours and intensive sweeteners has been
successful in some cases, while other solutions may require ion exchange resins or complexing agents (e.g., cyclodextrins).
API solubility can be influential in the dissolution rate from the chewing gum matrix. We know that highly soluble APIs are
released completely and much faster than slightly or poorly soluble APIs, which require longer chewing times. In some cases,
only a percentage of the total drug content is made available. Again, we believe that solubility enhancers used in other dosage
forms can be used to good effect in medicated gum to promote higher dissolution of poorly soluble actives. At our company,
we’ve worked with poorly-soluble APIs and found that, in some cases, the gum should be chewed for 30 minutes or more to get
a 50% release of the APIs. This isn’t like the sustained release of a normal tablet, which can take 3–4 hours in the digestive
tract.
For pharmaceutical manufacturers, what are the benefits of packaging APIs in this way? What types of APIs in particular would
benefit from being incorporated into chewing gum?
The advantages are that pharmaceutical companies do not have to invest in extra chewing gum equipment in their facilities
because our product range uses standard direct compression technology. Chewing gum stability is also very good because the
humidity content of the powder is low — much lower than traditional chewing gum made by extrusion. In particular, APIs that
are heat and humidity sensitive are good candidates for formulation into medicated gum.
