DOW-COLORCON Alliance launches a new excipient for the Indian subcontinent

– High profile launch of Methocel DC 2 in the Pharma capital – Hyderabad

Hyderabad, December 19, 2014: Hyderabad,known as the Pharma capital of India, hosted the high-profile launch of METHOCEL™ DC2 Premium Cellulose Ethersfor the Indian subcontinent. Designed to address productivity challenges, METHOCEL™ DC2 helps Pharmaceutical companies to lower manufacturing costs by up to 60% and shorten development time, while improving tablet quality.

Over 125 executives from Pharmaceutical majors and business partners attended the launch that was organized by Dow India and Colorcon, who work together through the Controlled Release Alliance. Industry experts came together to discuss the outlook, trends and future roadmap of the sector; Dr.Rajeev Raghuvanshi, Vice President,R&D, Dr. Reddy’s Labs Ltd., delivered a keynote address on the best practices and trends in direct compression technology and Dr.P V Appaji, Director General at the Pharma Export Council of India spoke about the past, present and future growth outlook for the Indian Pharmaceutical Industry.

Ralf Brinkmann, President, Dow Consumer Care, added, “Dow is well positioned to deliver high value solutions and innovations to global Pharmaceutical brand owners and generic brand suppliers that are addressing consumer demand for access to effective, safe, affordable and reliable medicines.”

Dow participates in the oral drug-delivery system – immediate release and controlled release formulations market. Globally, the company holds 5 of the top 10 excipient chemistries applied to a total functional excipients market which are valued at $4.4 billion.

Commenting on the launch, Christophe Massip, Global Marketing Director, Dow Pharma and Food Solutions, said, “In the recent years we have witnessed a tremendous rise in the utilization of high quality excipients in India, which leads to drug innovations. The rapidly growing Pharmaceutical market in India, multiplying demands for novel formulations, accessibility and availability of highly sophisticated technology and the development of new drug delivery systems are further promoting the development of the excipient industry in the country. ”

Christophe further added, “Innovations such as METHOCEL™ DC2 launched by DP&FS are expected to play a critical role in supporting the growth of the Indian pharmaceutical industry by helping the industry to shorten development time and lowering manufacturing costs by up to 60%. This latest innovative solution is based on a patented technology and has been designed to help customers enjoy the benefits of direct compression while at the same time improving tablet quality and delivering controlled release performance expected from the proven family of METHOCEL™ excipients.”

METHOCEL™ DC2 product family, enabled by Dow’s patented Designed Particles Morphology (DPM) Technology helps Pharmaceutical majors benefit from dry powder processing techniques while improving tablet quality and delivering the controlled release performance expected from the proven family of METHOCEL™ excipients.

Direct compression reduces waste and shortens the development time and manufacturing costs by 60 percent. This polymer is particularly helpful in manufacturing of heat sensitive and moisture sensitive drugs as the wetting and drying steps are eliminated. It also restricts the additional dosage that is added to cope with the loss of viable drug due to the wetting/drying process.

At the occasion, Subodh Priolkar, Managing Director, Colorcon South Asia, said, “The Controlled Release Alliance, between Colorcon and Dow Pharma & Food Solutions continuously strives to innovate and provide more choice and flexibility for excipients to Pharmaceutical majors. We aim to understand their requirement and develop products and services that meet the demands. METHOCEL™ DC2 is an innovative product that the CR Alliance is bringing to the market place to help accelerate pharmaceutical product development.”

He further added, “The CR alliance brings together strong polymer science knowledge from Dow together with Pharmaceutical application expertise, customer service and regulatory support from Colorcon that makes this a truly unique alliance, offering great value to our customers.”

The Dow-Colorcon CR Alliance delivers high quality products and continuously investigates new applications to help our Pharmaceutical and Nutritional Supplement majors to develop robust solid dose formulations.Through the utilization of fully-formulated products, the CR Alliance helps customers to produce cost-effective, high quality products with advanced performance and appearance. With a comprehensive range of formulation and process expertise, DP&FSis able to assist customers anywhere in the world to help them meet their solid oral dosage manufacturing goal. CCI Newswire