Healthy Skepticism Library item: 5923

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: news

Arnst C.
Taking A Shine To Your Rx
Business Week 2006 Aug 21
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_34/c3998003.htm#ZZZBTBQUOQE

Full text: PRODUCT PEEK : Taking A Shine To Your Rx

Tired of your little white or blue pills? The FDA recently ruled that drugmakers can start coating pills and tablets with pearlescent pigments similar to those used in cosmetics — sparkly, metallic, or satiny finishes. Called Candurin Pearl Effect Colors, the pigments are made by EMD Chemicals, a unit of Germany’s Merck KGaA (no relation to Merck & Co. (MRK )). EMD hopes pharma companies will use the pigments to distinguish their pills from generics.

The FDA approval has its critics. Those shiny colors are made by coating mica with titanium oxide or iron oxide. The concern is that the iron in the pigment could be toxic, especially for people who must limit their iron intake. But the agency concluded that the pigments, which cannot make up more than 3% of the weight of a drug, would have “no toxic potential” when ingested at that level. Similar pigments have long been used in contact lenses and titanium oxide is already allowed in drugs.

EMD will begin marketing the pigments shortly, raising the possibility that some drugs will look psychedelic, even when they’re not.