One reason why large pharmaceutical companies are renewing their focus on innovative drug-delivery systems is to differentiate themselves in a post-patent-cliff market, where increased competition from generics means the old days of drug domination are over. A U.K. financial website, Proactive Investors, explains how drug-delivery company Oxford Pharmascience is rebranding itself to take advantage of this trend.
In May, the firm changed its name to from Oxford Nutrascience. The new Pharmascience name reflects a focus on drug delivery. "What we want to do is look at using our technology to enhance the performance of existing generic drugs," CEO Nigel Theobald tells Proactive Investors. They're doing this through taste-masking, enhanced drug stability and tunable drug-release properties. The company is working on applications of its technology in ibuprofen and in liquid suspensions.
Right now, though, the company has accomplished a name change and lots of plans on the drawing board. They're still primarily a nutritional supplement company. The company's CEO is confident, though, that its "nutraceutical" products are "highly transferable from supplements to the larger, higher-value pharmaceutical market.
"We have completed much of our development and testing in the nutraceuticals industry, but it is the pharmaceuticals clients that will pay handsome milestone payments for firms that add value to their products."
- read more in Proactive Investors