Roquette has developed its new LYCAGEL Flex hydroxypropyl pea starch premix for nutraceutical and pharmaceutical softgel capsules.

Built on Roquette’s market-first LYCAGEL pea starch technology, the new plasticizer-free excipient gives manufacturers freedom to select the optimal plasticizer combination and customize formulations for a range of production and end-user needs, while setting new standards in quality, stability and performance for plant-based softgels.

Gelatin-based softgel capsules are a long-standing staple across the nutraceutical and pharmaceutical industries thanks to their widespread patient acceptance, safety profile and mechanical stability. Despite their popularity, however, these dosage forms can be challenging to manufacture successfully. Interactions with specific fill types, molecular crosslinking and sensitivity to heat and moisture during storage may compromise the stability of gelatin-based capsules, leaving patients with sticky, deformed, or ineffective medicines and supplements.

These issues are compounded when working with more advanced formulations. Here, manufacturers must precisely balance the ratio of gelatin to plasticizers, such as glycerol or sorbitol, to ensure optimal shell elasticity without increasing the risk of capsule leakage or other defects. What’s more, as a growing number of consumers pursue vegetarian, vegan or flexitarian diets, animal-derived ingredients, like gelatin, are becoming less of a universally accepted standard. 

LYCAGEL Flex represents the ultimate solution for manufacturers seeking a quality, plant-based alternative to gelatin, with the added flexibility to handle a wide range of – often complex – soft capsule formulations. The new premix features the same hydroxypropyl pea starch and carrageenan foundation as the original LYCAGEL VS 720 Premix, with a new formula that allows producers to select the perfect plasticizer or combination of plasticizers for truly unique softgel formulations.

Versatile and easy to use, LYCAGEL Flex offers countless opportunities to work with specialized capsule fills and process parameters to meet the demands of the evolving pharmaceutical and nutraceutical markets. 

“At Roquette, our guiding purpose is to solve the toughest challenges in drug delivery. This can take many forms; with the development of our LYCAGEL VS 720 Premix, the primary goal was to provide softgel producers with a high-quality ready-to-use alternative to gelatin. Now, as vegan capsules become more established, we recognize that our customers need greater control to customize their formulations.  LYCAGEL Flex is the answer, offering the same stability and performance with the added flexibility to differentiate,” commented Steve Amoussou-Guenou, Technical Developer Manager Europe at Roquette.

Similar to its predecessor, LYCAGEL Flex offers softgel producers a plant-based solution that not only replaces gelatin but equally offers significant process benefits. These include a reduced degassing time of just five minutes, versus the minimum 60 required for gelatin formulations, and the potential for easy equipment cleaning with only hot water.