Emulsion and microemulsion injection: Market volatility is low and sales continue to rise

Many drugs with poor water solubility and good fat solubility have been developed as emulsions for a long time. The most common is nutritional fat, fish oil, fat-soluble vitamins and other emulsions, the emulsifier used is generally egg lecithin, and a series of products are constantly introduced. At present, nano emulsion has become a new trend, for example, some of the emulsions of clovidopine butyrate and propofol are using nano emulsion technology. Barbiturates and diazepam and other drugs also have multiple emulsion products, but these drugs are not followed up by domestic enterprises, which may be because the drugs are too old and the emulsion development is too troublesome. The domestic market has performed well with Prostil, which uses microemulsion technology, but the name is not different from ordinary injection.

The emulsion products that have been listed in China are: fat milk, including a variety of oil fat milk injection, medium/long chain fat milk injection, long chain fat milk injection; Structured fat milk, such as structured fat milk injection (C6 ~ 24); Fat milk + amino acid + glucose combination products, such as 10% fat milk (OO) /5.5% amino acid (15)/glucose (20%) injection, etc. Omega-3 fish oil + fat milk products, such as omega-3 fish oil fat milk injection, omega-3 fish oil medium/long chain fat milk injection; Propofol, Brucea oil emulsion injection, alprostadil, etomidate, and elemene emulsion injection.

Alprostadil was originally the "master" in the field of emulsions, but affected by bidding and other factors, the market has fallen off a cliff. However, most emulsions are less affected by market fluctuations, and sales continue to rise.

In recent years, in the research and development of new drugs, the use of emulsion as a carrier of class 1 innovative drugs is not uncommon. The reason is that for some insoluble drugs, emulsions are a simple and rapid development path, and they are also easy to form certain technical barriers. Traditional anti-tumor, immune and peptide drugs, such as paclitaxel, docetaxel, cyclosporin and leprerelin, are also being developed for improved innovations in emulsion products. These drugs also use liposome microspheres or nanotechnology as technology carriers to develop improved products. Of course, what kind of technical path is adopted and whether it can achieve better clinical benefits is the key.

(From China Medical Journal)