Optimizing Dosage and Release Profiles to Delivery the Most Benefits

Choosing a delivery format is only half the formulation puzzle. In this Peer Exchange, David Foreman turns the conversation toward the ingredients themselves, asking what physical properties—solubility, dispersibility, pH sensitivity—actually drive the decision between fast-acting and slow-release profiles. Irfan Qureshi and Hank Ramsey offer perspectives shaped by different approaches to formulation, and together they illustrate how science, not trend, should guide these choices.

Qureshi frames the decision around research: what does the evidence show about where and how an ingredient needs to act to deliver its intended benefit? That means weighing whether a highly soluble ingredient might spike too quickly in the bloodstream, whether certain compounds degrade in the stomach and need protection through enteric coatings or delayed-release capsules, and whether an ingredient is meant to act locally versus systemically.

Ramsey brings a food-based lens to the discussion, explaining Elevate's reliance on whole-food ingredients and specific probiotic strains—Bacillus subtilis, licheniformis, and coagulans among them—chosen for their heat tolerance and ability to survive the pH shifts of digestion.

The conversation touches on more advanced release mechanisms as well, including bilayer tablets and other engineered approaches used to extend or delay an ingredient's release when the science supports it.

Viewers will come away with a sharper understanding of how formulators translate ingredient behavior into real-world product design. This discussion offers a grounded look at the decisions happening well before a product ever reaches the shelf.

Transcript:

David Foreman: Let's talk about the ingredient side of this. So, dosage forms are meant to deliver the actives, obviously, to get the effect, duh, right? But what physical properties of the active ingredients, we're not talking about the other stuff now, we're talking about the actives, like solubility, dispersibility, pH, you name it. What most heavily dictates the choice between a fast acting immediate release, or a slow release profile? Like, what… what plays a…What makes the choice happen there?

Irfan Qureshi: Well, from my perspective, I think that decision is really driven by the science on the individual ingredients. So, if there are certain release profiles, targeted release areas or benefits that have been shown in research to deliver that optimal effect, then that's what we want to target. And so, yeah, there are factors in consideration, such as solubility and pH. I mean, if it's something that's highly soluble, is that going to spike quickly in your bloodstream? And so, is a sustained release delivery a better and a more effective delivery form for that option?

Similarly with pH, are there ingredients that degrade, going through the stomach? And so do you need to protect those? So, things like, enteric coatings, delayed-release capsules. I think, I think those are really, what we would be looking for to deliver those types of ingredients. So it really depends on what you're targeting, from a bioavailability and efficacy and an absorption perspective, and whether the ingredients and the formula, you're looking at something that's acting locally versus something that you want to act systemically. So I think those are the factors that we look at.

David Foreman: Hank, you mentioned earlier, you know, you have a bunch of… and actually, I cheated, I went on both websites, just to learn more about what you guys are doing lately, we'll say. But you mentioned the use of different types of probiotics, right? I'm just curious, so…You mentioned a few of them were because of their… they're more stable, right? Like, sensitive to moisture, or heat, or whatever. So can you expand on that a little bit?

Hank Ramsey: Yeah, with Elevate, we're a food-based brand, right? So when you talk about what type of ingredients you use and so forth, all of our products are basically food-based, food grade. So we rely on the sum of the whole. We don't do isolated ingredients. That's more of a therapeutic protocol type environment. Ours is more of holistically and food-based, with all the cofactors and probiotics and enzymes. We always put probiotics and enzymes in our products, because that's how most of our good food's found in nature, but the probiotics we use are Bacillus strains, subtilis, licheniformis, coagulans, and you'll see, those probiotics are showing up in stores and online in food items because they can be cooked at higher heats, they can be used and they're going to sustain and get past that pH, and so your question, the same, I agree with Irfan, is that pH and stability getting through the stomach and getting down into the gut, where they react, and that's what the Bacillus strains do. And that's why we use them. You can heat them at high temperatures, and they have a high pH resistance that they can get through and operate.

David Foreman: So, other than… other than something to…not dissolve in a particular pH, what about the slowing the delivery release? When I was just in India, this company had a really cool technology that they had patented that significantly changed the release of melatonin. And, I was… I mean, it's kind of cool. I mean, I grew up in pharmacy, so I remember when… we went from different coatings, enteric coating, and next thing I knew, there was a 24-hour… I think it was the first ever 24-hour tablet, and the majority of it was a wax matrix, and they had a laser hole that was shot into the tablet so that only little microdoses would come out of it as it meandered its way through your GI system or whatever.

So, with regards to… we'll talk about, sustained release or delayed release, I know there's a lot of…the phraseology, we'll just assume they're all freaking the same, okay? Can we all agree on that one? So, one, do you both work with any of those? And two, if you do, which ones… like, why use one over the other?

And if you don't, we can just move along. I'm down with that too, okay?

Irfan Qureshi: Well, I would just go back to, for us, it's driven by the science. So, like, if there's a beneficial effect for delaying the release, or sustaining the release of an ingredient, then that's when we would probably consider that from a formulation perspective, so it's driven by the science. We do use ingredients that… we use branded ingredients that have those types of profiles, but we've also used, things like bilayer tablets, for example, to simulate the release, or to extend the release of an ingredient. So, we do some of that, but it's always driven by the science for us, and it's always about what's going to deliver efficacy. So, I think that's probably the primary consideration.

Hank Ramsey: Yeah, I want to go back real quick, because I think I said something that wasn't entirely accurate about Bacillus, that we only use Bacillus because we don't. We do use some [Lactobacillus] strains, and there are some pretty hardy, you can… there's millions of different strains of probiotics you can get. I'm sure everyone knows. And there's some very hardy Lacto strains, too. We just prefer the Bacillus strains, but we still do use some Lacto strains, and there are some data that shows the Bacillus strains can act as a chaperone to help chaperone through some of those Lacto strains.

But as far as a sustained release, as a food-based company, we really don't. The closest that would come to that would be what I would say is our A2 milk protein or casein, and it's not a sustained release, it's just gonna take longer for the body to digest it. I know there's been some marketing companies in terms that they've said sustain release protein. That's not what it is, it's just slower digesting, so we don't really, employ those types of…