Many pharmaceutical dosage forms and palatability technologies trace their origins to the food industry, where flavor, texture, and sensory experience are essential to product acceptance. Drawing from expertise across both food and pharmaceutical applications, our formulation and sensory scientists share practical insights into taste masking, flavor systems, swallowability, sensory characterization, and patient-centric drug product development.
These articles explore how sensory science and formulation strategy can work together to improve the patient experience and support successful drug products.
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The increasing use of flavored, chewable, and rapidly dissolving dosage forms has transformed the patient experience of taking medicines—particularly for pediatric and geriatric populations. At the same time, these innovations have raised an important regulatory question: When does a medicine become “too much like candy”?
A neighbor slipped and fell in his driveway. He was unable to get up and was taken to the hospital by ambulance. Before medical treatment could be initiated, the hospital needed to run diagnostic tests, e.g., x-ray, MRI. The same is true for developing palatable formulations – it’s not enough to know that it tastes “yucky” as there’s no universal “yummy” excipient.
It is widely recognized that young children cannot swallow traditional tablets, but difficulty in swallowing tablets (dysphagia) is not limited to children. An estimated 40% of adults report difficulty in swallowing tablets, which is increasingly common among older patients. How can the formulation scientist address these important patient needs, and how can “swallowability” even be quantitatively measured?
If you’re a Disney fan of a certain age, you probably can sing the lyrics to Mary Poppins Spoonful of Sugar Makes the Medicine Go Down. Many APIs are known to be bitter, some extremely so. The addition of flavor – orange, grape, berry, chocolate – cannot reduce bitterness as taste and smell have different perception pathways. Rather bitterness is reduced by blending with the complementary basic tastes – sweet, sour and salty – through the mechanism of taste/taste interaction. When properly blended, the result is a neutral tasting (“white”) base in which the basic tastes are not separately perceived.
Captain’s Log, Star Date 11.6.17: Mini-tablets are taking over the market for pediatric medicines.
Many believe that all good things come in small packages – and pediatric medicines should be no exception. However, while mini-tabs are de rigueur, they may not represent the silver bullet solution they are purported to be.
Recently, a strange noise from my car required a trip to the mechanic. Before the garage can start repairs, they need to diagnose the problem – is it a worn clutch or an exhaust? The same is true for developing palatable formulations – it’s not enough to know that it tastes “yucky” as there’s no universal “yummy” ingredient.
Sensory analysis is a scientific discipline used to evoke, measure, analyze, and interpret those responses to products that are perceived by the senses of sight, smell, touch, taste, and hearing. In our latest blog post we describe the methods most commonly employed to guide the development of palatable, taste-masked drug products.
By: David Tisi – Senopsys Technical Director “Flavor”, “Taste”, and “Smell” are not the same. To a sensory scientist, the term “flavor” refers to the combination of taste, aroma, mouthfeel and texture. This definition is important as we debunk one of the great myths of taste masking: that taste and smell are the same.
By: Jeff Worthington – Senopsys President and Founder Many drug actives are bitter or have other aversive attributes that require effective taste masking. Senopsys penned an article for Contract Pharma that describes the framework for developing palatable drug products advanced by the AAPS Pediatric Formulations Task Force. The framework is a decision-tree that identifies the