Controlled drug release is a well-established area of pharmacology. In this application Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) are encapsulated in nano- and microstructured materials. When the materials are exposed to physiological conditions, they decay predictably, releasing the APIs over time.
This approach offers substantial benefits over conventional administration of APIs:
Control over the size, shape and architecture of particles is extremely important as these parameters control the release profile of the APIs i.e. determine the concentration of the drug within the living system. For example, smaller particles have greater surface area and therefore decay at a greater rate, releasing the API’s quicker. Water soluble APIs require encapsulation in double or multiple emulsions (water-in-oil emulsions). In this case, to be able to control API release rates, even greater precision is needed to control the size and quantity of each droplet.
Typically, controlled drug release materials are manufactured using batch techniques. Batch technique however only gives statistical control over the size, shape and architecture of the underlying particles/emulsions. This results in materials with a range of characteristics (CV values >20%) and the therapeutic efficacy obtained using such materials is therefore significantly compromised.
Particle Works undertakes fabrication of drug release materials using droplet microfluidics and continuous flow processing. These methods enable precision control over the size, shape and architecture of each droplet or particle generated (CV values <1.5%). This level of control brings benefits such as:
Particle Works offers its expertise in the form of customer-specific projects with a range of scopes:
We offer microencapsulation services including: