New Jersey Patent of the Month – September 2021
Active ingredients in medications are most often prepared in tablet form. This gives the most accurate and consistent dosing. The disadvantages are great though, with the need for excipients and adjuvants to fill the remaining space. A good portion of the population struggles to swallow pills as well, and crushing them to make it easier may negate any controlled release effects built in. Films are a known alternative to carry active ingredients, but have yet to really make it into common practice. Films are known to suffer from aggregation of particles, meaning it’s difficult to control dosing with some films being too concentrated and others too sparse. This non uniformity ruins the film’s chance at realistic commercial applications, but Aquestive Therapeutics, Inc. has designed a method to produce uniform films and giving films a second chance at application.
Their method produces water-soluble films with anti-tacking agents. These anti-tacking agents can improve flow characteristics which helps prevent it from sticking to your mouth. They are produced with select polymers and a polar solvent. These combine into a non-self-aggregating, uniform heterogeneity of the film and requires a selected casting or deposition method and controlled drying process. This controlled drying can be done with either controlled radiation drying or hot air impingement across the bottom substrate. The drying process is important to avoid complications known as “rippling”. All together, it produces a uniform film with controlled dosage of active ingredients.
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