Tablets & Capsules

TC0717

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30 July 2017 Tablets & Capsules Gemini Pharmaceuticals, Com- mack, NY, is a contract manufac- turer of OTC pharmaceuticals and nutritional supplements. The com- pany specializes in solid dosage products and makes more than 15 billion tablets and capsules annually. Working in the dietary supple- ment industry requires Gemini to stay abreast of consumer trends, said Mike Finamore, Gemini's chief exec- utive officer. One of the biggest trends is "clean-label" products, a development he and colleagues fore- saw a few years ago. "From our place in the industry, we saw that eliminating pharmaceuti- cal inactive ingredients was going to be a very strong piece of our nutri- tional industry in the future," he said. "Between some activist websites and certain influential people, there were voices drawing attention to these manufacturing agents or excipients. Traditionally, these were not even looked at by the customer." Magnesium stearate, a lubricant widely used in tablets and capsules in very small amounts, was among the excipients under fire. Flow aids and other processing agents were also deemed suspect, even though they've been used safely for decades. "Magnesium stearate and other phar- maceutical inactive ingredients have their purpose in pharma and nutri- tion, and their characteristics have been perfected over time," Finamore said. But whether the excipients had value in a manufacturing sense didn't matter. Customers wanted something else, and the question became, "What can we do to eliminate these things in our supplements yet still have the characteristics required to manufac- ture a product?" Finamore said. Through friends, he discovered Ribus, based in St. Louis, MO, which offers alternatives. Rice hulls as starting material "Ribus had these really unique ingredients that they were bringing to market," Finamore said. One of the first was Nu-Flow, which is made from sterilized rice hulls ground to a fine powder. That process allows the naturally occurring silica in the hulls to provide functionality in solid dosage formulations. As a result, for- mulators can replace anti-caking agents such as silicon dioxide and tri- calcium phosphate with a natural and certified organic ingredient. In September 2016, Ribus intro- duced Nu-Mag, a superior replace- ment to magnesium stearate than its predecessor, Nu-Rice. Nu-Mag is a blend of rice extract, rice hulls, gum arabic, and sunflower oil. It provides lubrication similar to that of stearic acid and allows manufacturers to use a label statement that reads "rice extract blend." It's also certified organic. Gemini Pharmaceuticals was among the first to incorporate plant-based, organic excipients into its customers' dietary supplements. The company produces more than 15 billion tablets and capsules annually. The photo shows a V-type blender at its plant in Commack, NY. Gemini favors plant-based excipients to propagate clean-label supplements I N D U S T R Y a p p l i c a t i o n The company has developed more than 500 products using the alternative ingredients .

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