Evonik Develops a Biodegradable Version of Its EUDRAGIT Drug-Delivery Excipients
Evonik Develops a Biodegradable Version of Its EUDRAGIT Drug-Delivery Excipients
Evonik is developing a new biodegradable polymer platform designed to become the next generation of its EUDRAGIT® functional excipients for oral drug delivery. The new materials are being developed to combine the established performance of EUDRAGIT® polymers with a biodegradable end-of-life profile, giving pharmaceutical formulators an additional sustainability option without changing the fundamental drug-delivery functions of the excipient.
Biodegradable Platform Targets Oral Drug Delivery
The new platform is based on polymers intended for oral pharmaceutical applications, particularly where excipients are used to control drug release or improve the solubility of active pharmaceutical ingredients.
According to Evonik, the polymers are designed to provide performance comparable with current industry standards for solubility enhancement and delayed-release coatings.
This is important because excipients play a functional role in pharmaceutical formulations. They can help determine how, where and when an active pharmaceutical ingredient is released after administration.
Evonik's existing EUDRAGIT® portfolio consists of polymethacrylate-based functional excipients used for different drug-release profiles, including immediate and delayed release. Selected grades can also support the formulation of poorly soluble drug substances.
Sustainability Becomes a Design Consideration for Excipients
The development reflects a wider shift toward incorporating sustainability considerations into pharmaceutical product development.
Traditionally, pharmaceutical formulation decisions have focused heavily on factors such as safety, efficacy, stability, manufacturability and regulatory requirements. Evonik says sustainability is increasingly becoming another design criterion alongside these established requirements.
The company's new biodegradable polymer platform is intended to address this need by providing a biodegradable end-of-life profile while maintaining the functionality expected from pharmaceutical excipients.
Thilo Krapfl, Head of Oral Drug Delivery Solutions at Evonik Health Care, described the development as a move toward actively engineering sustainability into drug-delivery materials rather than simply measuring their environmental impact.
New Materials Meet Standardized Biodegradability Tests
Evonik says the new polymers have been classified as biodegradable according to standardized testing under OECD 301 F and OECD 301 B, achieving more than 60% biodegradation in the relevant tests.
These tests are used to assess the ready biodegradability of chemical substances under defined laboratory conditions.
For pharmaceutical manufacturers, such testing provides an important basis for evaluating the environmental behavior of new excipient materials. However, laboratory biodegradability results should not be interpreted as meaning that a pharmaceutical product will automatically biodegrade at the same rate in every environmental setting.
The actual environmental profile of a finished pharmaceutical product depends on its complete formulation, use, disposal pathway and surrounding conditions.
EUDRAGIT® Technology Has Broad Formulation Applications
EUDRAGIT® polymers are already used across oral drug-delivery applications because their properties can be tailored to achieve different release profiles.
Evonik says its existing polymers can be used individually or in combination to support virtually any target release profile, including immediate and delayed release. Certain grades are also used for improving the solubility of poorly soluble drug substances.
The materials are compatible with processing technologies including hot-melt extrusion and spray drying.
Evonik's objective with the new biodegradable platform is therefore not simply to introduce a biodegradable material, but to retain the processing and functional characteristics that pharmaceutical formulators already rely on.
Lab-Scale Material Available for Development Partners
The new technology remains at the development stage.
Evonik currently has non-commercial, laboratory-scale quantities available for joint development projects with selected partners. The company has not announced a commercial launch date for the new biodegradable EUDRAGIT® grades.
This stage allows formulation developers and Evonik scientists to evaluate the materials in potential applications and further develop their performance before commercialization.
For pharmaceutical companies, early collaboration could help determine how biodegradable excipients perform across different formulations, processing conditions and targeted release profiles.
Development Builds on Evonik's EUDRAGIT® Experience
Evonik says the biodegradable platform builds on its approximately seven-decade track record in oral drug delivery.
The company has continued to expand its EUDRAGIT® technology and supporting formulation capabilities during 2026. In April, Evonik and Japanese trading company Higuchi announced a joint laboratory in Yokohama to provide local formulators with access to EUDRAGIT® polymers and drug-delivery expertise.
The company also announced in August that it was providing cradle-to-gate Life Cycle Assessment data for selected EUDRAGIT® polymers. The data covers indicators including climate-change potential, water consumption and fossil-resource use and is intended to help pharmaceutical customers evaluate sustainability impacts and support Scope 3 reporting.
The biodegradable polymer development therefore forms part of a broader effort by Evonik to address sustainability across its pharmaceutical excipient portfolio.
Potential Impact on Sustainable Pharmaceutical Formulation
If successfully commercialized, biodegradable EUDRAGIT® materials could give pharmaceutical developers another option when evaluating the environmental profile of oral drug products.
The potential value lies in combining two requirements that can sometimes be difficult to balance: the technical performance required for controlled drug delivery and a material profile designed to reduce environmental persistence.
For formulators, this could eventually allow sustainability considerations to be incorporated earlier in the product-development process rather than addressed only after a formulation has already been established.
However, the technology still needs to progress through development and commercialization before its broader market impact can be assessed.
Evonik Targets the Next Generation of Drug-Delivery Excipients
The development of biodegradable EUDRAGIT® polymers represents a shift toward designing pharmaceutical excipients with both functional and environmental characteristics in mind.
Evonik's approach is focused on maintaining established drug-delivery performance while introducing biodegradability as an additional material property. With laboratory-scale material now available to selected development partners, the next stage will involve further formulation development and evaluation of potential applications.
The company presented the technology at CPHI 2026 in Milan, where sustainability and pharmaceutical innovation were among the areas highlighted by Evonik Health Care.
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2-Ethyl Hexanol
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