Improving Drug Delivery Systems With Novel Emulsion Technologies For Sterile Product Formulation

Due to its complexity, microencapsulation is extensively studied inside major pharmaceutical companies, universities and research institutes. Polymeric drug delivery devices are focused on the encapsulation of large molecules including peptides, proteins and DNA/RNA for potential use as vaccines and as long acting release drug formulations. Moreover, encapsulation is used for controlling the release of water soluble drugs. Demand for the process has led to the creation of advanced emulsion solvent evaporation/extraction based micro-encapsulation technologies.

The process of micro-encapsulation addresses complex modern drug delivery issues. For example, the Emultech group and Aesica  Pharmaceuticals have developed, and put to use in the formulation of drugs for clinical trials, a micro-fluidic process that creates a measurable micro-particulate suspension where  particle size is uniform and reproducible. This novel micro-encapsulation emulsion technology, ET4ME, is usable in the formulation of multiple APIs, from small molecules right through to complex biomolecules, with high levels of batch consistency and reproducibility upon scale up. Aesica has completed successful aseptic process simulation trials using the  ET4ME process, thus demonstrating the technologies’ potential for injectable product formulation.