Swiss specialty chemicals producer and distributor Omya has opened a new pharmaceutical and nutraceutical laboratory at its headquarters in Oftringen, gaining the capability to carry out product development in-house.

Until now, the company has outsourced to external partners under third-party agreements which has given rise to certain challenges, in particular securing intellectual property rights. Omya said it can now ensure legal certainty for both itself and its customers and react to market needs much faster. The lab is also expected to shorten times to market for customers.

The facilities include a wet lab for product development, a dry lab for granulation, and tableting and performance analysis. Equipment includes fluid-bed technology, a roller compactor and a rotary tablet press, allowing for high-quality mineral research, development and technical support.

As the world’s leading producer of calcium carbonate, Omya said developing innovative applications and maintaining ongoing natural minerals research projects in the facility would be of paramount importance.

“With the new laboratory, we are able to protect intellectual properties and further extend our specialist calcium carbonate expertise. This includes developing new structured minerals that are tailor-made for specific applications or optimizing existing products to meet the changing needs of the industry,” said Stefan Lander, vice president consumer goods.

One of the company’s products, Omyapharm, a functionalized calcium carbonate that allows production of granules and tablets with high mechanical strength and fast disintegration times, won the CPhI 2015 Pharma award for most innovative excipient.