North Brunswick, New Jersey–based company Distek, which focuses on dissolution products and services, unveiled at Pittcon 2011 its Symphony 7100 dissolution test, which is scheduled to begin shipping in June at an introductory price of $19,625 (see IBO 4/15/11). Distek’s Global Sales and Marketing Manager Jeff Seely told IBO that the concept of the product was developed through direct customer feedback and sales channels. He said that customers indicated that they wanted to run multiple independent test methods at the same time. The Symphony 7100 is designed so that three dissolution tests can be run simultaneously on the same instrument and that the end-user can vary the three key testing parameters: volume, temperature and RPM. “This is particularly important in the development phase of a drug product because as you’re testing it, you want to change the variables and see how the formulation reacts to those variables,” Mr. Seely explained.

Unlike other dissolution testing systems that use water bath–based systems, Distek employs its bathless technology, which the company first introduced in 1996. It takes 15 minutes to heat the media with the Symphony 7100, Mr. Seely said, versus up to 45 minutes with traditional water bath–based systems. “If you take that one step further, and you then factor in the capability of the system to run three methods simultaneously, now the potential exists to save several hours to several days, depending on the test,” he said. The product’s target audience is anyone working with solid-dosage forms, Mr. Seely told IBO.