Cargill to Showcase Sweet Diluents for Tablet Applications

At CPhI 2008, Cargill will demonstrate several new applications for its sweet excipients as well as its C*Pharmdoc quality system, underlining the company’s reputation as one of the most trusted, dedicated and experienced pharma ingredient suppliers. Cargill Pharma will demonstrate its broad and sophisticated portfolio of ingredients and expertise, with a special focus on the tabletting capability of its range of natural sweet excipients, including glucose monohydrate and erythritol. Liesbeth Meeus, Pharma & Personal Care Application Centre Leader, said: “Cargill’s Pharma Application Centre in Vilvoorde, Belgium, has recently patented a way to use our C*PharmDex as a diluent-binder in tablets without lamination. This enables pharmaceutical companies to achieve consistent quality and an optimum tablet texture and taste using a single high performance ingredient as the excipient. With this study, a perfect way has been found to highlight this product’s excellent dry granulation binding properties in high active-dosage formulations, making it ideal for use as a sweetening diluent in chewable medicated tablets. In addition, our extensive research programme has discovered a way to manufacture tablets with Zerose erythritol. This is highly beneficial for the formulation of unpleasant tasting actives into tablets, as Zerose erythritol is particularly useful not only for providing a sweet, cooling taste, but also for its taste-masking properties. It is non-hygroscopic, non-caloric, suitable for diabetics and has a high digestive tolerance.“

Cargill’s C*PHARMDOC quality system has been developed to provide pharmaceutical companies with full quality assurance under IPEC/PQG guidelines for Cargill excipient ingredients. This system draws upon Cargill’s extensive experience with food industry regulations and also with the Certificate of European Pharmacopoeia. Patrizia Tolomelli, Quality Manager for Cargill Pharma, said: “The C*Pharmdoc quality system provides a way for pharma companies to extend the same principles of quality and consistency for their excipients that they currently use for active ingredients under the Good Manufacturing Practice Guidelines. We have already received positive feedback from customers, and by creating a common pharma language, we expect that the system will provide companies with savings in time and quality management resources.” Cargill backs its pharma offering with international regulatory insight and a dedicated team of pharma innovators. Cargill Pharma has the capability to exploit both the distinctive capabilities of its individual ingredients and the potential synergies arising from combining ingredients in integrated systems, to meet a wider range of customer and application requirements (www.cargill.com).