Pharmaceutical Technology Europe-01-07-2011

How innovation is cushioning pharma's fall from the patent cliff.

During the past few years, we've seen a growing interest in direct oral application products, evidenced by the large amount of products already available on the market.

This month, our columnist Nathan Jessop discusses a topic that remains highly debated in Europe; direct to consumer (DTC) advertising.

Orally disintegrating tablets (ODTs) are growing in popularity and their market value could exceed $13 billion in sales by 2015, based on current global growth trends.

Direct-to-consumer (DTC) advertising is firmly entrenched in the US, but has historically been considered as an inappropriate means of communication in Europe for prescription-only medicines.

Iain Moore explains what progress has been made so far regarding EU plans to regulate excipients.

Biologics are large molecular weight molecules primarily formulated for parenteral administration; however, there are some smaller biomolecules that have been formulated for oral use.

Biopharmaceuticals commonly cannot be terminally sterilised, as such aseptic processing using sterilising grade filtration is essential.

UHPLC offers increased performance compared with HPLC, including shorter analysis times and increased sensitivity.

Excipients should be regulated to manage risk. Although, excipients are an integral part of a finished pharmaceutical product, the issue of regulation is complex.

The authors describe a new method for the production of personalised medicines utilising ultra-precise microdrop printing technology.