Patheon, a provider of contract development and commercial manufacturing services, has announced plans for additional investment in its Milton Park facility. Located in Oxfordshire, U.K., Milton Park is a dedicated pharmaceutical development services facility focused on early development projects.

As part of its early stage offerings, Milton Park currently provides proof-of-concept and first-in-man development programs for oral dose forms. It also offers Quick to Clinic, which provides clinical trial materials as fast as four months from receipt of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). This service has been structured to provide support to emerging pharmaceutical companies with promising molecules.

With the first phase of additional investment to Patheon's Milton Park facility, the company will be able to expand upon the early development capabilities currently being offered, including the introduction of the SoluPath program. SoluPath is the first fixed-price, multi-platform solution to improve bioavailability that allows parallel formulation screening using multiple leading edge technologies to review aqueous, lipid-based and solid state formulations. The result is a unique formulation development program for low solubility/bioavailability molecules, which should facilitate a faster route to the clinic. The purchase of a new HME screening tool and spray-drier will supplement existing technologies at Milton Park to provide the SoluPath service to emerging pharmaceutical companies with poorly soluble molecules.

"The introduction of Solupath into Milton Park's existing capabilities is an exciting addition to Patheon's service offering in Europe," said Robin Platt, senior director of operations for Milton Park, Patheon. "Poorly soluble compounds are increasingly common in pharmaceutical development and we believe Solupath provides a mechanism for identifying the most effective way of improving bioavailability of molecule in these cases."

Paul Garofolo, executive vice president of global PDS operations, added, "Solupath has been operating successfully in Patheon's North American facilities. Establishing this capability in Europe is part of Patheon's global strategy to expand early pharmaceutical development services for our customers."