Enhancements
Biocompatible polymers can be enhanced to improve application performance with biomedical additives to provide visibility on x-ray, stimulate bone growth, or deliver drugs locally to the therapeutic site.
Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs) – Our hot melt extrusion process is a solvent free method to prepare drug delivery polymer dosage forms consisting of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), excipients, and biomedical polymer carriers. Hot melt extrusion offers improved drug solubility and bioavailability, improved drug stability, controlled release, and reduced processing costs. Our twin screw extruders de-aggregate, melt and disperse the API in the biomedical polymer matrix. The final product is a solid dose which can be a reduces to powder form for tableting or capsule filling, molded to shape for implants, or extruded into film or fiber for transdermal or trans-mucosal delivery systems.
Bone Mineral – Phase pure β TCP (tricalcium phosphate) is an osteoconductive and biocompatible additive melt blended with bioresorbable polymers such as PLA for stimulation of bone growth in applications such as ACL screws. Alternatively, hydroxyapatite (HA) may be melt blended with bioresorbables polymers such as PLLA for interference screw for anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) reconstruction.
Radioqaque - Polymers are inherently transparent to x-ray imaging and require specific additives to achieve x-ray visibility. Radiopaque fillers commonly blended with biomedical polymers for radiopacity include barium sulfate, bismuth subcarbonate, bismuth trioxide, bismuth oxychloride, and tungsten.