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Ten months after the Mumbai, India based drug maker Elder Pharmaceuticals Limited (BSE: ELDERPHARM) expanded & modernized its R&D centre, its scientists have come up with a Novel Drug Delivery System (NDDS) for a Nutracuetical formulation called Coenzyme Q(10) [CO Q10] enabling Elder to become the first company in the world to launch this nutraceutical in a novel form.

So far COQ10 products were available mostly as soft-gel capsules or as tablets. Elder’s R&D centre worked extensively on the development of a chewable form of CO Q10- offering optimum dose of 100 mg per tablet - making it more palatable & acceptable to patient population thereby expanding the market for the same.

Says Alok Saxena, Director of the Rs 600 crore Elder Pharmaceuticals Limited, “When we expanded our R&D centre by adding about 50 scientists over the last one year, our primary goal was to concentrate on NDDS rather than molecule research. The technology in developing the chewable form of COQ10 is a unique technology & Elder is in the process of filing for worldwide patents also.”

Launched through the ethical route under the brand name of Ecozyme, this nutraceutical helps build immunity and is effective in fighting Cardiovascular diseases, neurogenerative diseases particularly Parkinsons & Alzheimer’s, Migraine, hypertension and diabetes. The company believes that Ecozyme will be prescribed by physicians to a larger patient population (esp. those above 50) and is targeting sales of about Rs 30 crore by 2012. The company has a tie-up with M/s Gnosis Labs, Italy for the purchase of the API.

Elder Pharma already has a major presence in the nutraceutical market with a range of products like Eldervit ZC, Nephrocaps, IMBRAN from Daiwa of Japan, Elmecob & Phytomega from Enzymotec of Israel. This has facilitated Elder to capture a sizeable share of the nutraceutical market segment. Thus, addition of Ecozyme to the product portfolio of Elder Pharma would lead to a consolidation of its presence in this segment.