Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/883179
Tablets & Capsules October 2017 27 market actors and fly-by-night peddlers of formulations made without scientific work and promoted with false claims. In addition, the regulations governing the indus- try vary from state to state. So the cannabis industry is a hybrid, growing where the nutraceutical and pharma markets overlap and where regu- lations conflict. That suits me because I like to be where the action or growth is, so after 25-plus years working in mainstream pharma, I leapt into the world of cannabis. I now work for a company that is striving to make better products that are proven by science in order to secure mar- ket share. What follows is some of what I've learned. Some facts about the active Let's start at the beginning, the active pharmaceutical indgredient (API). What is its nature? By today's stan- dards, it's a fairly ordinary one: Insoluble (1 to 2 micro- grams per milliliter) [1], with poor absorption, and avail- able in a variety of physical states ranging from stable oil at about 55 to 65 percent purity to 99.9 percent pure crystalline material that is subject to degradation from air and light. There are too many cannabinoids to address here, but a couple popular ones are delta-9-tetrahydracannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). A popular API form of cannabis is a 65 percent pure mixture of THC and CBD, with the balance (35 percent) being terpenes, plant waxes, other plant compounds, etc. As anyone working in the nutraceutical arena knows, there are a variety of issues with plant extracts, including their very sticky Cannabis oil as it appears after CO 2 extraction Photo by Colleen Mairéad Hughes Because cannabinoids are natural products, their properties are in flux. A robust formulation design is mandatory.