Klucel™ HPC Polymer Turns 65

In the early 1950’s the world welcomed the first transistor radio, the first car with power steering, and the first non-stick cookware. Perhaps less known to the world, but equally as important, a water-soluble polymer was also discovered, a technology so versatile in nature that its inventor, Eugene D. Klug, would spend the next two decades in the laboratory searching for and finding novel applications.

Klucel™ hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC), the polymer which would bear his name, was the subject of a 1951 United States patent application, and it formed the basis of a new generation of oral pharmaceutical dosage forms.

Klucel HPC with its means to bind pharmaceutical actives with inert material safely and reliably marked the beginning of the tablet form as the leading drug delivery system in the world. Widely recognized as a polymer at the forefront of a new class of “functional” excipients, Klucel HPC and others like it afforded the pharmaceutical industry the ability to produce numerous blockbuster drugs in tablet form.

Before the commercialization of Klucel HPC, formulators of drug tablets relied ostensibly on natural starch and cellulose materials as bulking and binding agents, materials that did not support the long-term stability of drug molecules, or facilitate drug absorption.

This year Klucel HPC celebrates 65 years as a versatile technology with a long history of safety.  However, polymer scientists at eight Ashland research centers around the world continue to advance this technology for use in the next generation of pharmaceutical dosage forms such as hot-melt and modified-release drug matrix systems.