Artful Taste Masking Improves Patient Compliance

By Sundeep Sethia, Ph.D., Senior Director, R&D, Pii

The flavor taste masking market is expected to jump from $224 million in 2021 to $331 million by 2028.¹ One driver behind this increase comes from the pharma industry. According to a recent webinar, Solving the Taste-masking Challenge, more than 90 percent of pediatricians report that a drug’s taste and palatability are the biggest barriers to completing treatment and 11 percent of adverse events relate to abnormal taste or poor aftertaste.

Taste Masking is required for dosage forms that interact with the taste buds, such as solutions, suspensions, powders, films, chewable tablets, and orally disintegrating tablets – the preferred dosage forms for pediatric and geriatric populations. Traditional coated tablets, capsules, and softgels interact minimally with the taste buds as they are swallowed, hence most drugs in these dosage forms do not require taste masking. The best and most practical method of taste masking should be considered for each API. Some of these methods are discussed in this article.