Disease Management 

About IAPACEducationAdvocacyConferencesWhat's NewPublicationsJoin IAPACContact UsSearchLinksMain Page
 

Norvir Advisory

Taste & Aftertaste Questions & Answers
from Presentation 3, Norvir Community Update

Exerpt from Presentation 3, Norvir Community Update - Steve Lichter, Director, International Pharmaceuticals Manufacturing, Abbott Laboratories

QUESTION: Can you do anything to improve the taste of the liquid?

SUN: None of the protease inhibitors are easy drugs to formulate. This is why you don't see the other protease inhibitors being formulated as liquids. You have to use ingredients that do not taste particularly good. If you are trying to formulate a liquid that is bioavailable, it must be capable of being absorbed. This requires solvents that often have an unpleasant flavor.

We initially tried nearly 200 different formulations with ritonavir to find that acceptable range between something that people could stomach as well as something that met the technical criteria that we needed. I will be one the first to admit that ritonavir doesn't taste good. All the people from Abbott here have tasted it. We even have people here that have tasted it every day for weeks to be able to better understand what some patients have contend with. We are all aware of the problem. Later you will hear about the results of a taste panel to find, in a systematic way, food items or tricks, that people have found to be helpful in at least masking the taste. However, we are limited to some extent by the solvents that we have to use to make the formulation.

Posted 12/28/98

Notice: This is an IAPAC initiative that is under the sole direction of the IAPAC Norvir Advisory Committee. Contents of the Norvir Advisory section of the IAPAC Web site are subject to the approval of the chair of the advisory committee and will reflect the recommendations of the committee members. Abbott Laboratories has no input in the content of the Norvir Advisory section of the IAPAC Web site.