Author Archives: Tom Watson

Drug Formulations Are Changing:
New Sterile Filtration Challenges in the Changing Landscape of Drug Formulations

Read about the challenges of sterile filtration of high concentration mAbs, liposomes, and lentiviral vectors, and how to solve them in this Special Report. Development of new, complex drug formulations has given us therapeutics with properties that are markedly different from traditional drug types. High viscosity or low surface tension formulations or large viral vector molecules can mean that sterile filtration processes, which are optimized for traditional drug types, are not as efficient for the new, complex formulations. Premature filter…

Factors Affecting Sterile Filtration of Sodium-Carboxymethylcellulose–Based Solutions

Carboxymethylcellulose sodium (CMC), is widely used as an excipient in oral, topical, and parenteral pharmaceutical formulations. It increases viscosity (1–3), serves as a suspension aid (4), and stabilizes emulsions (5). More recently, applications for CMC in formulations that facilitate improved delivery of cytotoxic drugs and biologics have been evaluated (6, 7). CMC is manufactured in a broad range of viscosities, with grades typically classified as low, medium, or high viscosity. CMC grades can be divided further based on their degree…