Ashland opens pharma technical centre in Shanghai

The centre will help companies operating in China to improve the performance of tablets and other solid dosage forms

Ashland has formally opened its pharmaceutical technical centre in Shanghai, China. The state-of-the-art complex now accommodates all the scientists and equipment Ashland requires to solve complex challenges for China’s producers of solid dosage forms.

Doubling the size of the original complex built in 2008, Ashland is now able to provide a range of pharma technical services to create and apply specialised chemistry in ways that enable customers to amplify the efficacy, refine the usability, add to the allure, ensure the integrity, and improve the profitability of their products and applications. These include binding enhancement, disintegration improvement, modified release, solubilisation and film coating in China, to help companies operating in the country to improve the performance of tablets and other solid dosage forms.

Speaking to an audience of more than 80 guests during a dedication ceremony, William A Wulfsohn, Chairman and CEO, Ashland expressed the extra value that the company brings to China’s pharma industry with an advanced facility and technical team firmly grounded in science-based solutions.

Ashland currently operates three pharma technical centres throughout the world, including one in Wilmington, Delaware (US), and one in Hyderabad, India. All three facilities operate individually – and in tandem – for the benefit of Ashland’s customers working regionally or globally.

Scientists at Ashland’s Shanghai facility now use more advanced equipment on site to help customers in Asia enhance the solubility and bioavailability of sophisticated drugs with novel applications of excipients – the inactive but functional substances that serve as drug delivery systems.

David Neuberger, Vice President of Pharmaceutical, Nutrition and Agricultural Specialties, Ashland, expressed the importance of a full-service laboratory in Shanghai that enables the full and proper use of Ashland’s excipients in today’s more complicated world of oral drug formulating.

The company is set to produce its Klucel HPC, Plasdone PVP, and Polyplasdone PVPP brands at its Nanjing complex.

Besides, the company is ready to assist the food and beverage industry in the Asia Pacific region with a range of technical solutions following the completion of an expansion project at its technical centre. The new state-of-the-art equipment is in place that affords food scientists at Ashland the ability to work closely with dairy, bakery, beverage and meat product makers to solve complex formulation and processing challenges.

EP News Bureau