SupplySide West: Tricalcium Phosphate Excipient with Guar Gum for “Label Friendly” Tablet Compression

At SupplySide West, Innophos (Cranbury, NJ) highlighted its new NutraTab tricalcium phosphate excipient. Thanks to the inclusion of guar gum, NutraTab is a “label-friendly” option to others on the market, the company says.

In terms of tableting ability, NutraTab offers excellent hardness, flow, compressibility, disintegration, and mouthfeel when used as a calcium ingredient in chewable tablets. Company tests show that NutraTab in a standard multivitamin formula enabled smaller, lighter tablets due to its greater calcium load and higher binding, requiring less use in formulation.

“We’re very excited with NutraTab because this is something specifically for the nutraceutical industry,” Barbara Heidolph, director of commercial development, told Nutritional Outlook.

NutraTab’s high calcium content is “probably the highest you can get without going to something like calcium carbonate, which does not have the additional nutritional value of phosphorus that NutraTab has,” Heidolph says. As an ingredient, “We continue to see calcium as the big focus. No matter what happens, calcium tends to shine at the top.”

Jennifer Grebow
Editor-in-Chief
Nutritional Outlook magazine jennifer.grebow@ubm.com

Photo © iStockphoto.com/mm88