Whenever we hear or think about medicines, we immediately think tablets, capsules, and injections. Now is the time to add Oral Thin Films(OTF) to the list as they are fast replacing traditional drug delivery mechanisms due to their increased efficiency as a drug delivery medium.
Formulated by perfecting the aesthetic and performance characteristics of strip-forming polymers and plasticizes, thin films can store active pharmaceutical ingredients while at the same time masking flavours using sweetening agents, saliva stimulating agents, flavoring agents, stabilizing and thickness agents. The sweet taste formulation plays a vital role especially in pediatric applications.
These Hydrophilic polymers are designed tend to dissolve whenever they come in contact with water or saliva. They are manufactured to have sufficient peel, shear, and tensile strengths while still maintaining their quick dissolving properties.
Why is Big pharma switching to Thin Films?
Oral Thin Films provide patients a quick, painless and convenient way to consume medicines which are especially helpful especially for children, bedridden, elderly and mentally challenged patients who suffer during self-administration of drugs due to difficulties swallowing tablets/capsules.
Oral Thin Films also have sufficient drug loading capacity and are designed to be more efficient due to their increased ‘Bio-availability’. The key advantage of the thin film medium is that it is able to skip first phase metabolism making the dosage concentration of the drug constant, accurate, and effective.
Big pharma is gradually adopting Oral Thin Films for drug delivery starting with nutraceutical APIs such as vitamin D3, B12 and other supplements and multivitamins. An increasing number of thin film based therapeutics are under development including the treatments for asthma, allergy, migraine and so on as it improves adherence for sufferers of chronic diseases. Thin film based insulin drugs and vaccines are also in the development process and the technology promises to have far reaching implications in the drug delivery phase.
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Zimlabs Thinoral® technology has 24 Drug Controller General of India (DGCI) approvals and enjoys widespread adoption in the Pharma industry. Drugs manufactured on the Thinoral® platform are exported to 25+ countries across the globe.
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