Finnish Pharmaceutical Innovation: Free Flowing Granulate

PDG Dry Granulation as Valid Alternative to Wet Granulation

HELSINKI, Finland, July 5, 2010 - Standard methods in pharmaceutical production often reach their
technological limits - be it wet granulation, roller compaction or direct
compression. The Finnish company Atacama Labs - www.atacamalabs.com -
with its proprietary pneumatic dry granulation technology extends this limit
successfully and provides free flowing granules of most any API. The
so-called PDG technology helps galenic developers in offering clearly
enhanced solutions for their development projects.

The PDG granulate offers a host of advantages versus today's granulate,
in that it is both flowable and compactible and improves disintegration and
dissolution, among others. Furthermore, the tablets can be furnished with a
very high drug load (70-95%), decreasing tablet size to ameliorate patient
compliance and making it optimal for fix combinations.

Furthermore, the technological advantages not only help in galenic
development, but even more so in the later industrial production process.
Significant cost reduction of up to 30%, a simple process with 3 steps with
continuous production and a high input/output ratio are hallmarks of Atacama
Labs' innovative production method. Scale-up from lab scale is no longer to
be considered an issue.

Steffen Mittwich, CEO of Atacama Labs, gets to the point: "With our PDG
process we are able to provide a simple, cost effective and highly reliable
production method which also facilitates new pharmaceutical developments and
helps to overcome existing galenic development hurdles."

Brand new scientific study results have now been published regarding
traditionally difficult-to-handle substances: Paracetamol, Metformin,
microcristalline cellulose and Ibuprofen. The results are proving that these
products can be transformed via dry granulation into freely flowing granulate
with excellent compactibility properties. The resulting tablets show
satisfactory hardness and friability profiles with no capping and excellent
disintegration and dissolution data. (see also
www.atacamalabs.com/publications-posters)

With its innovative PDG technology, the company from Helsinki succeeds in
improving life cycle management options, providing new product and production
possibilities to pharmaceutical companies and oral dosage forms with high
drug load in optimal quality.

    Information:

    Steffen Mittwich
    Atacama Labs Oy
    Fredrikinkatu 61
    6th floor
    00100 Helsinki
    Finnland,
    Tel. +41-79-3693410
    E-Mail: info@atacamalabs.com
    Web: www.atacamalabs.com

Information: Steffen Mittwich, Atacama Labs Oy, Tel. +41-79-3693410, E-Mail: info at atacamalabs.com