Tech Forum: Opportunity Cost of Overlooking Softgels: Bioavailability and Release Modulation Insights
Thursday, July 11, 2024
2:30 PM - 3:30 PM CET
Location: Sala Europa
Sponsored By
Lipid-based formulations (LBFs) in softgels have long been highly valued in the pharmaceutical and nutritional industries due to their unique advantages. These include the encapsulation of liquid and semi-solid formulations, improved stability and bioavailability, and enhanced absorption with immediate or controlled release. Softgels are also known for being patient-friendly dosage forms. Despite these benefits, there has been a recent decline in the development of LBF products in softgels. This decline is concerning because there is no evidence linking this trend to efficacy issues, indicating a potential strategic oversight. Overlooking softgels could lead to missed opportunities for optimizing bioavailability and release modulation in pharmaceutical products, resulting in less competitive therapies and higher costs due to less efficient bioavailability enhancing technologies.
This presentation will highlight why softgels should be a strategic choice for developing more effective therapies and gaining a competitive edge in the pharmaceutical market. We will compare lipid-based formulations in softgels to other bioavailability enhancing technologies such as spray drying, hot melt extrusion, and micronization, discussing their benefits and limitations from a manufacturing perspective. Additionally, we will address the critical challenges in developing dissolution methods for softgels. Understanding how the choice of apparatus and conditions, along with factors like cross-linking gelatin and enzyme addition, affects dissolution properties is crucial for ensuring strong discriminatory ability and better in vivo performance prediction. Join us to learn how softgel innovations can address your drug delivery challenges and unlock new opportunities in bioavailability enhancement and release modulation.
