Widmann: Our Kolliphor® range of products, including poloxamers, hydrogenated castor oil, TPGS and others offers a wide variety of
properties that match the physicochemical properties of active ingredients. The latest innovation in this field is Soluplus®,
which won the Silver CPhI Innovation Award in 2010.
Q. Hot-melt extrusion is one potential solution for resolving bioavailability issues. Can you provide details on the companies'
expertise in this area?
Widmann: BASF is a recognized world-leading manufacturer and innovator of pharmaceutical excipients. We offer a line of polymers designed
specifically to increase solubility in general and for use with hot-melt extrusion in particular. We have significant investments
year on year in the development of pharmaceutical excipients because we believe that today's formulation challenges can not
be solved with yesterday's excipients. Furthermore, BASF has decades of experience in the hot-melt extrusion technology in
plastics as well as in pharmaceutical applications.
Muir: Catalent is the world-leading solubility solutions provider, with Softgel and OptiMelt™ hot-melt extrusion. Its capabilities
range from development, formulation, pilot, commercial manufacturing to differentiated drug delivery on a global scale.
Q. Will BASF and Catalent staff jointly work on a project for a given client?
Muir: Catalent will cooperate with BASF to optimize solubility from excipient selection, formulation, process technology to drug
delivery and dosage form for customers desiring an integrated approach. By providing our customers with the option of working
with a team of experts across our companies, we will increase efficiencies for them from development to scale-up to commercial,
hence enabling them to deliver more products to market.
Widmann: Nobody knows our products better than we do. This know-how in the application of our excipients is brought into the alliance
by training and supporting the Catalent formulation experts. Where appropriate, experts of both companies will work together
on customer projects to find optimal solutions.
Q. What feedback have you received since the collaboration began?
Widmann: The announcement generated a lot of interest in the market because every formulator is concerned about the solubility challenge.
Muir: Not only in the market, but also internally, everybody is excited about the opportunity to jointly cover the whole pharmaceutical
value chain from excipients to finished drugs.
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