Plasticised superporous hydrogel
AssigneeOxford Medical Products Limited
InventorsXue Min, Anthony John Fitzpatrick, Jan Tadeusz Czernuszka, Camilla Easter
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Abstract
The invention provides a process for preparing a plasticised superporous hydrogel material comprising subjecting initial hydrogel material to treatment with an acidic solution, an optional treatment with a monovalent metal salt solution, freeze drying and plasticisation. Optionally, the process of the invention produces moulded plasticised superporous hydrogel material bodies that have one or more through-holes formed therein. The plasticised superporous hydrogel material of the present invention may be formulated as a suitable oral dosage form for use an appetite suppressant and for use to deliver a pharmaceutical and/or nutraceutical into a human or animal body.
Claims14
A process for preparing a plasticised superporous hydrogel comprising the steps:
- a) forming an initial hydrogel material in the absence of any blowing agent or other foaming means, wherein the initial hydrogel material comprises one or more selected from interpenetrating network structure, a semi-interpenetrating network structure and a simple cross-linked structure formed by providing a mixture comprising acrylamide and alginate and subjecting the mixture to polymerisation and/or cross-linking conditions;
- b) recovering the resulting initial hydrogel material formed in step a) and treating it with an acidic solution comprising one or more acids, and with a pH of ≤3;
- c) treating the initial hydrogel material formed in step a), either concurrently with, or after, treatment step b), with a ≥0M to ≤0.5M solution comprising one or more monovalent metal salts;
- d) drying the resulting initial hydrogel material formed in step c) using freeze drying, to produce a dried superporous hydrogel material;
- e) treating the resulting dried superporous hydrogel material to plasticise its structure;
- and
- f) recovering the resulting plasticised superporous hydrogel material.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.