Introduction
Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose, non-toxic and harmless, is approved as additives by the food, drug and cosmetics regulations of all the countries. Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose is an excipient with a wider application in formulations in recent years. In medicine, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose can be used in various dosage forms. In tablets, pills, powders, liquid, emulsions, suspensions, and paste, it can be used as binding, thickening, separating, releasing, stabilizing and emulsifying agents.
Application
As a natural hydrophilic polymer pharmaceutical excipient, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose not only can be used as binders, disintegrating agents and film coating materials of ablets, granules, pills, but also can be used as thickening and suspending agents, blockers, controlled-release agents and pore-forming agents of sustained-release and controlled-release formulations, and vectors of solid separation.
How does it work
As a coating material in tablets, Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose helps to make tablets disintegrate and release in a particular environment. For example, Some enteric drugs, with the use of Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose as a disintegrating agent, may not disintegrate and maintain the original state under the condition of low pH value in the gastric juice; while under the condition of high pH value in the intestinal fluid, the drugs will disintegrate and release quickly and thus play better efficacy.
Safety
Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose is metabolically inert, so as pharmaceutical excipients, it won’t be metabolized or absorbed. In food, it does not provide heat, so it has peculiar usability on the food of low calorific value, no salt, no change in immunogenicity suitable for people with diabetes.