Industry Challenges:

The current pharmaceutical industry’s demand for sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (CMC) centers on its role as a high purity, multifunctional excipient. It must meet stringent global standards such as GMP to ensure the safety, stability, and bioavailability of pharmaceutical formulations.

Fortune Biotech produces pharmaceutical grade CMC derived from natural plant fibers, offering excellent biocompatibility and chemical inertness. The product is widely used in tablets, oral liquids, topical, and ophthalmic formulations as a binder, disintegrant, or suspending agent, providing stable and reliable excipient support for drug development and production.

Application Cases:

Case 1: Solid Formulations (Tablets, Capsules) as Binder and Disintegrant

As a binder: In wet granulation processes, low-viscosity CMC solution effectively moistens powders and binds drug substances and other excipients, forming granules with moderate hardness and improved flowability and compressibility. During tableting, it significantly enhances tablet hardness and friability resistance, ensuring tablet integrity during packaging and transportation.

As a disintegrant: CMC exhibits excellent water-absorption and swelling properties. Upon entering the gastrointestinal tract, CMC rapidly absorbs water and swells, generating mechanical force that promotes quick disintegration of the tablet into fine particles. This accelerates drug dissolution and absorption, improving bioavailability.

Recommended Models: Low viscosity, medium degree of substitution.

Case 2: Liquid Formulations (Oral Suspensions, Syrups) as Suspending Agent and Thickener

As a suspending agent: For suspensions containing poorly soluble drugs, the three-dimensional network structure formed by CMC in water increases the system’s viscosity. According to Stokes’ law, this slows the sedimentation rate of drug particles, ensuring accurate and uniform dosing for patients and preventing under- or overdosing due to sedimentation.

As a thickener: CMC imparts suitable viscosity to oral liquids and syrups, improving taste and swallowability, particularly for pediatric and elderly patients. Its shear-thinning property ensures product stability in the bottle while maintaining good pourability.

Recommended Models:Medium to high viscosity.

Case 3: Ophthalmic Formulations (Eye Drops, Ophthalmic Gels) as Viscosity Modifier and Lubricant

Prolonged drug retention: Adding a small amount of high-purity CMC to eye drops moderately increases the viscosity of the solution. This significantly extends the residence time of the solution on the ocular surface after instillation, enhancing drug-cornea contact time and thereby improving drug bio-availability and efficacy.

Lubrication and soothing: The lubricating properties of CMC make it a key component in artificial tears and other eye care products, effectively relieving symptoms such as dryness and fatigue while providing long-lasting comfort. CMC used for this purpose must be of a highly purified, sterile-filtered, high-end grade.

Recommended Models: Specially purified high-viscosity, high-transparency models.