FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
French Technology Press Office Ref #:  Z021
Contact: Kimberly Elsham
Tel: (312) 327-5260
E-mail: contact.ftpo@ubifrance.fr

PIERRE FABRE LABORATORIES WINS SILVER INNOVATION AWARD FOR ITS FORMULPLEX® PRESSURIZED CO2 TECHNOLOGY

Chicago, March 3, 2009 (word count: 361)
Pierre Fabre Medicament’s Supercritical Fluids division has won the Silver Innovation Award  at the latest CPhI International trade show (Convention on Pharmaceutical Ingredients) held in October 2008 in Frankfurt, Germany. This prize rewards the expertise of France’s second independent pharmaceutical laboratory in “SuperCritical Fluids” technology. Since 2004, the team has been focusing on the development of tools using pressurized CO2 as a solvent. This process helps carry out pharmaceutical operations (crystallization, impregnation, complexation) at low temperature, free of organic solvents or mechanical stress.

The technology awarded at the CPhI is known as FORMULPLEX®. This is a supercritical CO2 medium complexation process patented by Pierre Fabre Laboratories. It is a means of obtaining inclusion complexes under “mild” conditions in order to increase the bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs.

Cyclodextrins, a branch of the oligosaccharides family, are commonly used to form inclusion complexes. But complexes obtained thanks to FORMULPLEX® have a structure showing different characteristics to that of complexes obtained using other techniques. Thus interactions between the active ingredient and cyclodextrins are more efficient, resulting in higher apparent solubility. FORMULPLEX® has the advantage of being carried out under mild, solvent-free conditions. It also helps to reduce energy costs.

Besides FORMULPLEX®, Pierre Fabre Medicament has developed other patented technologies founded on pressurized CO2 use:

- FORMULDISP® leads to stable solid dispersion with increased excipient functionality.
- With FORMULCOAT®, supercritical CO2 helps to coat particles to mask their bitter taste or to stabilize an active ingredient. Lastly, the RESS and SAS crystallization processes help to increase an active ingredient’s specific surface, in order to obtain a specific polymorph or a narrow granulometric breakdown.

Since 2004, the team has at its disposal a multiservice platform, certified as being of pharmaceutical grade by French Health Authorities, and fully GMP-compliant (Good Manufacturing Practices). This unique manufacturing unit is in position to produce GMP batches for clinical trials.

Pierre Fabre Group’s SuperCritical Fluids division thus offers its partners a chance of collaborating in the pharmaceutical development of active ingredients (bioavailability increase, taste masking, stabilization, etc.) or in Life Cycle Management.

The company will attend the 2009 AAPS Annual Meeting and Exposition in Los Angeles from Nov. 8 to 12.

For more information, please contact:

PIERRE FABRE MEDICAMENT
SuperCritical Fluids Division
Bernard Freiss
Director SuperCritical Fluids
Tel. +33 (0)5 63 81 24 00
E-mail: bernard.freiss@pierre-fabre.com
Web: www.supercritical-solutions.com

or:

FRENCH TECHNOLOGY PRESS OFFICE
205 North Michigan Avenue, Suite 3740
Chicago, IL 60601
Tel.: (312) 327-5260
E-mail: contact.ftpo@ubifrance.fr

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