Collaborations for Advanced Hot Melt Extrusion
Karlsruhe, Germany and Mumbai, India (June 30, 2008) - Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc., the world leader in serving science, and Pharma Polymers, a business line of Evonik Industries, today announced a cooperation designed to advance the hot melt extrusion process in the pharmaceutical industry. By combining the formulation and EUDRAGIT® polymer expertise of Evonik with best-in-class equipment from Thermo Fisher Scientific, the companies aim to develop a solution that will overcome process challenges, such as solubility, and improve time to market. The Evonik and Thermo Fisher Scientific teams will work together at the Pharma Polymers facility in Mumbai, India and will serve pharmaceutical manufacturers mainly in Asia with feasibility and demonstration trials.
"This is an exciting development for both companies and our customers. This new cooperation allows us to marry our expertise in equipment, process and extrusion with the best practice in polymer dynamics, ultimately bringing our customers optimized results," said Chris Knowles, director of global sales & service for Materials Characterization with Thermo Fisher Scientific. "Our cooperation in the rapidly growing Indian market is just the beginning, and we believe the combination of our technology with the talented minds at Evonik will drive change with local companies and manufacturers around the world."
Hot melt extrusion, or the process of embedding a drug in a polymeric carrier while shaping the composite material to form a product, can improve drug solubility and taste masking, reduce production time and provide other benefits related to a drug's unique formulation. Specifically, hot melt extrusion combines several process steps of the conventional method; for example, melting, mixing, kneading, venting and extrusion are all combined into one continuous extrusion process. Hot melt extrusion is an emerging process in the pharmaceutical industry and many manufacturers still lack the necessary equipment and on-site expertise to evaluate the advantages of using EUDRAGIT® polymers and Thermo Fisher Scientific instruments. Through this cooperation, the companies establish for the first time a local opportunity for companies to test and scale-up EUDRAGIT® Polymers using the Thermo Scientific PharmaLab family of products.
"Our work with Thermo Fisher Scientific will enable a faster response to customer needs and will increase the options we can offer them," said Dr. Hema Ravishankar, business director for Pharma Polymers in India at Evonik Industries. "We're bringing our customers the technology and the hands-on experience through regular seminars, and this combination will be vital to building a deeper understanding of hot melt extrusion capabilities for the business and the pharmaceutical industry in Asia."
For more information about the Thermo Scientific PharmaLab family of products, please visit: www.thermo.com/twinscrew. For more information about Evonik EUDRAGIT® Polymers, please visit:www.pharma-polymers.com.
Thermo Scientific is part of Thermo Fisher Scientific, the world leader in serving science.
About Thermo Fisher Scientific
Thermo Fisher Scientific Inc. (NYSE: TMO) is the world leader in serving science, enabling our customers to make the world healthier, cleaner and safer. With annual revenues of $10 billion, we have more than 30,000 employees and serve over 350,000 customers within pharmaceutical and biotech companies, hospitals and clinical diagnostic labs, universities, research institutions and government agencies, as well as environmental and industrial process control settings. Serving customers through two premier brands, Thermo Scientific and Fisher Scientific, we help solve analytical challenges from routine testing to complex research and discovery. Thermo Scientific offers customers a complete range of high-end analytical instruments as well as laboratory equipment, software, services, consumables and reagents to enable integrated laboratory workflow solutions. Fisher Scientific provides a complete portfolio of laboratory equipment, chemicals, supplies and services used in healthcare, scientific research, safety and education. Together, we offer the most convenient purchasing options to customers and continuously advance our technologies to accelerate the pace of scientific discovery, enhance value for customers and fuel growth for shareholders and employees alike. Visit www.thermofisher.com.
About Evonik Industries
Evonik Industries is the creative industrial group from Germany which operates in three business areas: Chemicals, Energy and Real Estate. Evonik is a global leader in specialty chemicals, an expert in power generation from hard coal and renewable energies, and one of the largest private residential real estate companies in Germany. Our strengths are creativity, specialization, continuous self-renewal, and reliability. Evonik is active in over 100 countries around the world. In its fiscal year 2007 about 43,000 employees generated sales of about 14.4 billion and an operating profit (EBIT) of more than 1.3 billion.
