DFE Pharma, a global leader in pharma- and nutraceutical excipient solutions, today announced the launch of its new Center of Excellence “Closer to the Formulator” (C2F) in Hyderabad, India. The C2F center is based in Genome Valley, a hub of major Indian and global (bio)pharmaceutical companies and renowned research organizations. C2F helps pharmaceutical companies to shorten the time from a concept to a finished commercial product through expertise in all phases of pharmaceutical development.
Pharmaceutical companies face increasing challenges, such as developing robust formulations which can be scaled up for high-speed production and first launched in the market. Smooth regulatory processes depend on decisions made in the development phase. ‘First-time right’ formulations are essential for success in the highly competitive market. Reducing cost and time of development can also allow affordable and new medicines to reach more patients, as advocated by national and regional policies such as the Jan Aushadi1 initiative in India or the EU pharmaceutical strategy2.
“Our new 1200m2 C2F center of excellence offers cutting-edge capabilities and resources to improve product development globally, while also integrating hardware and data management software,” explains Dr. Anilkumar S. Gandhi, Director of the C2F center. “Our services result in robust formulations, utilizing top-level excipient expertise transferrable to scale-up. We aim to further collaborate with our customers in this new center to combine the joint formulation expertise.”
The services offered by this new state-of-the-art facility are mainly focused on oral solid dosage forms, comprising all types of pre-registration work including development, scale-up, and technology transfer. Formulation support includes specialized dosage forms such as orally disintegrating, effervescent, chewable, and sublingual tablets, minitablets, etc. C2F capabilities also support efficiency projects such as conversion from wet granulation to direct compression.
The center works with the active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs)* and can utilize innovative concepts with model APIs. The equipment covers an instrumented tablet press, an automated capsule filling machine, a tablet coater, a blister packaging machine, stability chambers, and state-of-the-art analytical equipment. The C2F offering can provide pharmaceutical companies with multiple advantages such as significantly lowering the number of development cycles, for example, and reducing formulation costs when launching a medicine.
Speaking about C2F, Martti Hedman, CEO of DFE Pharma added: “DFE Pharma has made a multimillion-euro investment in the new Center of Excellence in Hyderabad. Our overall goal is to help the global and Indian pharmaceutical industry to launch new products fast, at a low cost, and always first-time-right. This new Center of Excellence demonstrates how DFE Pharma anticipates trends and innovations to increase patient’s access to safe, high-quality medicines.”
