The agreement – financial terms of which were not disclosed – will combine Solvias’ solid state chemistry capabilities with Hovione’s particle engineering and manufacturing capabilities.
The idea is to offer developers of drugs with poor solubility a broad range of delivery and manufacturing solutions according to Colin Minchom, Hovione’s VP or particles design.
“Solvias has a tremendous reputation for science, quality and expertise in crystal design for improved drug performance. This agreement reinforces our strategy of combining strengths with innovative companies to allow our customers a seamless and integrated approach to their drug delivery challenges.”
Collaborations
The deal fits with the idea that drug industry demand for bioavailability and solubility solutions is growing as – increasingly – development pipelines are dominated by Biopharmaceutical classification scheme (BCS) Class II and IV compounds.
For example, just yesterday Merck Millipore told this publication that this demand was behind its decision to invest in a new laboratory scheduled to open next year.
But while the Hovione Solvias collaboration fits with this trend, it also more closely mirrors a number of accords formed by others in the services sector.
In April, German chemicals firm BASF teamed up with contract manufacturing organization Catalent to provide services for researchers who have solubility or permeability problems with BCS Class II and IV substances.
More recently US chemicals firm Dow teamed up with CMO Bend Research to develop spray drying-based solutions designed to improve drug bioavailability.
At the time Bend senior research VP David Lyon told Outsourcing-pharma.com his firm’s collaboration was also about improving the profiles and delivery characteristics of poorly soluble compounds.
“The use of spray-drying for pharmaceutical applications is important because amorphous dispersions are a key delivery technology for increasing the solubility of BCS Class II and IV drugs, which make up an increasing proportion of pharmaceutical pipelines.”
The large number of collaborations focused in this area also support another comment made by Merck Millipore about the current state of services provision in the market.
The firm told this publication that: "Today, single technology providers are the only players helping customers address bioavailability enhancement issues. There is a clear market need for a provider of comprehensive products and technologies to support bioavailability enhancement.
BASF and Catalent, Dow and Bend and now Hovione and Solvias' collaborations suggest they would agree with this interpretation.