INTERVIEW
The formulation lab places a strong emphasis on customer-driven solutions and sustainable pharmaceutical development enhancing accessibility of pharmaceutical products through innovation and precision. Furthermore, it provides hands-on training, technical consulting, and customised solutions that are designed to tackle customer-centric challenges in formulation development, production scaling, and troubleshooting ensuring a tailored approach to evolving industry needs. The lab serves as a resource hub for the pharmaceutical community, to tackle real-world problems today, while preparing for tomorrow’ s needs.
How is the centre positioning itself to address the evolving needs of the global pharmaceutical and biopharma markets?
To address the evolving needs of the global pharmaceutical and biopharma markets, the Merck’ s Formulation & Technology Centre leverages latest advancements in excipient technology to support the development of highquality formulations. The centre fosters long-term partnerships, giving clients the opportunity to co-develop solutions that contribute to the creation of next-generation therapies.
To date, it has supported over 1,000 scientists from leading pharmaceutical companies including Sun Pharma, Dr. Reddy’ s Lab, Hetero, Lupin, Slayback, Cipla, Emcure, Intas and Glenmark, reinforcing its role in fostering scientific progress and strengthening its partnerships across the generics and biosimilars landscape. Strategically established to serve growing market demands across India, APAC, the Middle East, LATAM, and Africa, the centre functions as a key resource hub for the pharmaceutical sector, addressing both current and emerging healthcare challenges.
What role does advanced technology play in accelerating the formulation process, and how does this influence time-to-market for pharmaceutical products?
The rapid evolution of the Indian pharmaceutical industry is largely fueled by technological advancements and therapeutic development. Merck’ s Formulation & Technology Centre supports this growth with cutting-edge technologies such as spray drying, Wurster coating, and melt extrusion. It is also equipped with advanced research tools like Melt Prep ®, NIR spectroscopy, particle size analyzers, rheometers, and predictive formulation tools, each designed to accelerate drug discovery and
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BioVoiceNews | June 2025