Unilab, the country’s largest and leading pharmaceutical and healthcare company, has scored another breakthrough as the United States Patent and Trademark Office granted the patent for its SureDose technology in November 2007. The SureDose technology is used in Rimaped Suspension, a rifampicin-containing liquid suspension specially formulated for the treatment of childhood TB.
SureDose is a technology that addresses the problem of inconsistent dosing in the treatment of tuberculosis (TB). “SureDose technology keeps drugs in suspension uniformly distributed during prolonged storage periods even without shaking,” said Dr. Kennie Dee, Unilab Vice President for Research and Development (R&D).
In suspensions, drugs such as rifampicin are known to have the problem of caking or settling of the active ingredients at the bottom of the drug bottle. “Such caking causes dose uniformity problems due to incomplete drug dispersion despite vigorous shaking,” Dr. Dee further explained.
With the physical stability and excellent drug uniformity in SureDose, Rimaped is the only product with a “single-shake suspension technology which ensures that the child always receives an accurate dose of the drug, spoon-for-spoon” added Dr. Dee.
This breakthrough in medicine administration is Unilab’s response to the World Health Organization’s (WHO) global campaign to ‘make medicines child size.’ According to the WHO, the lack of medicines available in dosages or formats suitable for children accounts for the lack of proper treatment for them.
For this, WHO is campaigning to “raise awareness and accelerate action to address the need for improved availability and access to safe child-specific medicines,” particularly for TB, among other major diseases.
In the Philippines, the Department of Health reports TB as the 6th leading cause of illness and the 6th leading cause of deaths among Filipinos. With this prevalence, children’s health faces a major danger as pediatric TB study shows that children below five years old are at the most risk of developing the disease after exposure.
Unilab addresses this major health concern by providing treatment efficacy that hinders TB treatment failure and drug resistance caused by underdosing, through Rimaped SureDose.
The SureDose technology is the fourth Unilab innovation to obtain a US patent following TasteRite (a taste-masking medicine technology), Powdered Mix with Rapidly Dissolving Calcium, and Calcium Fortified Acidic Beverages. The technology was developed by PediaTech, Unilab’s R&D organization dedicated to innovative solutions in child care. |
