MilliporeSigma (Billerica, Mass.; www.emdmillipore.com) announced it has extended and expanded its collaboration with Kuraray Europe GmbH (www.kuraray.eu) to exclusively supply pharmaceutical polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) grades and improvements to benefit the pharmaceutical market. PVA polymers are used as matrix/drug delivery compounds to assist in drug formulation and help active pharmaceutical ingredients enter the human body efficiently.
“Demand for controlled release excipients is growing,” said Andrew Bulpin, head of Process Solutions at MilliporeSigma. “This agreement will provide a steady PVA polymer supply so that MilliporeSigma can continue to develop valuable solutions to help pharmaceutical industry customers solve new challenges and deliver increasingly effective therapies to patients.”
MilliporeSigma’s design know-how, in combination with Kuraray’s manufacturing expertise, will make a wide variety of PVA polymer grades for pharmaceutical applications available. These compounds, including ones with various new properties, can help tackle pharmaceutical challenges. For instance, they can improve the controlled release of solid dosage forms and topically applied gels. The developments from this collaboration will include injectable grades with low levels of specific impurities.
PVA is a versatile polymer platform for use in developing drug formulations. Intrinsic polymer properties — molecular weight and hydrophilicity, for example — may be adjusted to meet the needs of specific formulations.