Ethypharm receives patent for crush resistant oxycodone

French pharmaceutical manufacturer Ethypharm has received an Indian patent for a crush-resistant, water insoluble form of pain killer drug oxycodone. The invention prevents accidental intake, misuse and unlawful diversion of the medicine, claims the company.

Oxycodone HCL is listed by the Narcotics Control Bureau of India as a pain relief drug that is often abused.

The company had filed its application in 2008 and, in an order issued last week, the Patent Office in Mumbai granted it a patent, after considering various objections raised by the examiner.

The company, in its specification filed with the patent office, claimed that the matrix tablets, which are unbreakable under normal conditions, incapable of being fried and insoluble in liquid, are of particular interest as reservoirs for psychotropic agents, since they can reduce and even prevent addictive abuse of these substances by crushing, dissolving and injection, or by crushing and inhalation.

There are also chances of accidental misuse of the medicines such as Oxycodone, which contains sustained-release opiate agents, it says. It may be due to failure in following administering conditions or chances are that the tablet, intended to be swallowed, is accidentally chewed by the patient. "The consequences of full or partial destruction of the tablet whose structure is intended to delay the release of the active ingredient, can prove to be dangerous and even fatal for the patient {excess dosage leading overdose)," it said.

Besides, abuse through injectable or nasal route of sustained-release active ingredients, which are normally intended for oral route, gives drug addicts the opportunity to achieve immediate, accumulated psychotropic effects of the total active ingredient dose present in the initial formulation. With the crush resistant form, the chances of crushing and using it through injection or inhaling it would not be possible, said the company.