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News
17 Oct 2019

Unique mini-tablet dispenser meets flexible oral dosing need

Meeting the varied and individualised oral dosing needs of patients in areas such as paediatrics, geriatrics and oncology can be challenging.

Patients often require highly flexible oral dosing based on either their age, weight, body surface area or other variables, but relatively small patient populations can make it cost prohibitive to offer multiple, finely adjusted, fixed oral doses. The patients may also find it difficult or impossible to swallow normal-sized tablets and/or capsules.

The solution: Mini-Tablets

While liquid dosing presents an alternative to tablets, there are some drawbacks, which include: poor taste, often a deterrent for young patients; the need to refrigerate reconstituted suspensions to ensure stability over the course of treatment; overall inconvenience of dealing with liquids and the potential to spill; and the possibility of microbial contamination.

For these and other reasons, mini-tablets may offer a more attractive, viable option for these patient populations since mini-tablets can be flexibly dosed and easily swallowed.

The Drug Delivery Device: Mini-Tablet Dispenser from Phillips-Medisize

The systems currently available predominantly rely on volumetric measuring principles, but with this approach, it is unclear exactly how many mini-tablets are dispensed and thereby what dose is actually delivered to the patient.

The innovative dispenser from Phillips-Medisize enables patients and caregivers alike to ensure improved accuracy in counting the mini-tablets dosed without requiring a new or different bottle. The solution has been validated for child resistance and senior friendliness and has established its usability through four formative HFE studies.

• The Easy-to-use mini-tablet dispenser removes guesswork from the equation, enabling patients and caregivers to dispense the exact number of mini-tablets needed per dose accurately and reliably in single increments between 1-20 tablets
• It prevents potential contamination that could occur if patients poured out mini-tablets into their hand, counted out the ones needed, and poured the rest back into the bottle
• The patented, low-cost dispenser mounts directly on a standard Ø38 mm tablet bottle and can be used with mini-tablets having Ø2.0-2.5 mm in size (and option to be customised to fit other tablet dimensions and/or count ranges)
• Ability to add connectivity in the future will help encourage medication adherence
• It can be co-packaged with the medication bottle or supplied separately

CE marked samples can be supplied by year-end 2019 for clinical trial, and volume production could begin in early 2020, with Phillips-Medisize potentially serving as legal manufacturer. For regulatory approval, the device will be submitted as a Class I medical device in the EU and Class I 510(k) exempt in the US.

Mentioned Companies
Phillips-Medisize
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