Offering innovative formulas

How can natural ingredients be used to enable certain tablets to dissolve more quickly than others? Or to give a plant-based liquid a pleasant taste? To combine a range of apparently incompatible, sensitive natural ingredients into an effective whole? The mission of our formulation department is to provide answers to all these questions, and more.

Monitoring scientific progress: a source of inspiration

The formulation expertise of Arkopharma Laboratories is based on our ability to innovate. The formulation department identifies potentially useful active ingredients that have recently been introduced onto the global market, further to credible scientific research, as well as possible excipients – such as those which improve compressibility.

“New ideas often come about as a result of our careful monitoring of scientific progress, as regards both active ingredients and excipients.” Richard Coll, formulation expert

This mastery of the relationship between active ingredients and excipients enables the formulation department to fulfil its mission: to foster the use and consumption of original dietary supplements, in which the active properties and efficacy of the ingredients are preserved.

The formulation department also works on formulas submitted for Marketing Authorization (i.e. the green light to market the formula as a “medication”) and formulas designed to be used as dietary supplements.

These dual skills enable the Group to develop new concepts based on safe, effective, natural products that meet consumer expectations.

Twofold expertise

Illustrated by Arkoroyal Body's Defenses. The specification for this dietary supplement was “optimistic”: bring together, in a single, drinkable dose, a set of incompatible active ingredients – lactic ferments, with a guaranteed composition, despite the fact that they deteriorate naturally over time (even more so when they are in an aqueous phase), fat-soluble vitamin D and relatively unstable royal jelly.

What at first appeared to be an unsolvable challenge was achieved thanks to the use of special packaging in the form of a single-dose recipient containing two separate states: powders (ferments and lyophilized royal jelly) in the cap and liquids in the bottle. The mixture of the two, obtained via the release of the powders into the liquid using an original system, occurs just before consumption.

“We were able to achieve this thanks to our knowledge of pharmaceutical formulations combined with our experience in the field of dietary supplements.” Richard Coll, formulation expert

Adapted formulation solutions

Another example of formulation development: the triple-layer tablets used for Azinc Natural Defenses, made up of fat- and water-soluble vitamins, minerals, four types of lactic ferments, propolis, etc.

“Thanks to these original tablets, we manage to prevent the various active components from interacting.” Richard Coll, formulation expert

The formulation department is also in charge of resolving other issues, such as those relating to the taste of our liquid products. Plants are often characterized by a bitter natural taste, which is even stronger when they are in liquid, drinkable form. In such cases, the mission of the formulation department is to identify plants with a bearable taste for a given indication or, failing that, find a way of masking the taste.

This is what happened during the development of certain tablets certified as being of organic origin: the question of which bulking agents to use proved challenging.

The answer came in the form of suitable organic ingredients: baobab powder, dehydrated wheat glucose syrup, and so on…

“It's up to us to find solutions—which must be as natural as possible most of the time —to resolve this kind of issue.” Richard Coll, formulation expert