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Helping the medicine
go down
Kosmos Pharma faced a major challenge when it began
developing its concept for medicine strips — stamp-sized
strips of medicine that dissolve in the mouth negating
the hassle of swallowing pills. The company had to create
strips that gave patients the proper dosages of medicine,
similar to those of traditional tablets or capsules.
“We had an inherently low-cost process, but we
had to prove that we could, through various processes
we invented, create a stable dosage form [for the medication],”
says Joseph M. Fuisz, general counsel for the Great
Falls-based company.
After
exhaustive research, the company’s initial testing
showed that the concept would work, and the Kosmos Pharma
FD Tabs were created. The medicine strips, which dissolve
when taken orally, are manufactured using a film that
is similar to the breath-freshener strips that have
recently gained mass appeal. Besides making medicine
easier to swallow, the strips have other benefits: The
production of the FD Tabs is low-cost when compared
with traditional pill medications, Fuisz says.
“The
product is processed into five foot-wide sheets of the
film, which creates millions of tabs,” Fuisz says.
Kosmos Pharma has patent rights to the technology and
will license the product to pharmaceutical retailers,
who then will set the retail price. Puerto Rico-based
Mova Pharmaceutical Corp. will manufacture the tabs.
Kosmos Pharma is working on the development of 15 different
pharmaceutical drugs. The first products, scheduled
to arrive in 2003, will be sold over the counter, and
prescription drugs will be introduced sometime after.
Looking
forward, Kosmos Pharma hopes to tap into the European
pharmaceutical market. The company has an agreement
with Wisconsin-based Allergychoices Inc. to introduce
the technology to the European market as an alternative
to tongue injection immunotherapy for allergies.
The
Fuisz family is no stranger to the pharmaceutical industry.
Fuisz and his father, Richard C. Fuisz, started Kosmos
Pharma after the family’s publicly traded company,
Fuisz Technologies Ltd., was sold in 1999 for $250 million.
Kosmos Pharma began operations the following year, and
currently has 15 employees.
—
Holly M. Rodriguez
Return
to Virginia Business - December 2002
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