Sugar Talk
Sugar Talk
Sugar in the pharmaceuticals industry
Sugar’s role in pharmaceuticals goes far beyond sweetening medications. From enhancing patient compliance to stabilising critical vaccines, its functional properties are essential to modern medicine. The global industrial sugar market is experiencing significant growth, driven by the rising demand for sugar in pharmaceutical applications.
In this blog, we explore the role of pharmaceutical grade sugar, its applications within the pharmaceuticals industry, and why sourcing from a reliable supplier is essential for maintaining high-quality production standards.
The role of sugar in pharmaceuticals
In the pharmaceutical industry, every ingredient serves a purpose. Sugar, particularly pharmaceutical grade sucrose and glucose, plays a critical role in ensuring drug safety, efficacy and compliance. From adding bulk to tablets, improving the taste of medicines to stabilising vaccines, sugar is indispensable across a range of applications. However, to meet the rigorous standards required by regulatory bodies such as the British Pharmacopoeia (BP) and European Pharmacopoeia (EP), sugars used in pharmaceuticals must meet chemical purity and quality standards.
Pharmaceutical applications that have traditionally favoured sucrose are turning to alternatives. For example, the market for pharma grade invert sugar syrup is expanding, particularly in India. In the country, a growing middle class has led to increased awareness of and demand for medical treatment, pushing drug manufacturers to turn to external sugar vendors to keep up with consumer requirements. As a result, new bulk industrial sugar manufacturing facilities have sprung up across India, with this only partly satisfying demand. As this demand grows, the pharma grade standard is essential.
As demand for patient-friendly formulations rises, the use of sugar-coated tablets is on the rise, particularly in medications designed for children and those with difficulty swallowing uncoated pills.
Pharma grade sugar and how it is used
For a sugar-based substance to be considered pharma grade in the UK, it must meet the stringent chemical purity standard set by BP. These standards ensure that pharmaceutical sugars are free from contaminants and meet the high-quality requirements necessary for drug formulation. Pharmaceutical manufacturers strictly follow these guidelines to guarantee product safety and efficacy.
Pharma grade sugar syrups and pharma grade sucrose are integral to a wide range of applications, including coating, bulking, flavour enhancement and preservation:
Sucrose, derived from sugarcane or sugar beet, serves multiple functions:
As a bulking agent and binder in tablets like lozenges and sugar-coated tablets, enhancing their stability and taste
As a sweetener, carrier syrup and thickening agent in liquid formulations such as cough syrups
In syrup form, it is used as a wet binder or tablet coating, while in powdered form it functions as a dry binder and sweetener.
Invert sugar syrup is primarily used to mask the unpleasant taste of active ingredients and to improve palatability:
Its high viscosity makes it an effective diluent while also providing a quick energy boost, essential in products like cold and flu medications.
Beyond improving taste, invert sugar syrup helps extend shelf life and preserve the quality of formulations .
Pharmaceutical grade glucose in drug formulations
Pharmaceutical grade glucose is critical in drug development due to its diverse functional properties. It is widely used in:
Intravenous (IV) solutions to provide a fast energy source.
Oral rehydration salts (ORS) and nutritional supplements for energy and hydration.
Vaccine stabilisers, maintaining the integrity of active ingredients during manufacturing, transport and storage.
Liquid sugar suspensions are a patient-friendly solution
Liquid sugar suspensions are a vital dosage form, particularly for paediatric and geriatric patients who may find tablets difficult to swallow. In these formulations, finely divided solid particles are dispersed in a liquid medium, ensuring a stable and consistent distribution of active ingredients. Unlike solutions, where ingredients are fully dissolved, suspensions require suspending agents to keep particles evenly dispersed, ensuring patients receive the correct dose every time.
In the context of liquid sugar suspensions, bulk sugar for suspensions such as sucrose and glucose serves a dual purpose. Beyond enhancing taste and mouthfeel to make medicines more appealing, they also improve viscosity, helping to maintain an even suspension and reduce particle settling. This ensures a smooth, easy-to-administer product that promotes patient compliance.
Pharmaceutical excipients and the role of sugar in suspensions
In the pharmaceutical industry, pharma grade sucrose is commonly used as an excipient —a substance included in medicines to serve a functional role without any direct pharmacological effect. While excipients are considered ‘inert,’ they are essential for enhancing the performance of a drug, whether by improving its stability, compressibility or taste.
Pharma grade sugar excipients, such as sucrose and glucose, play versatile roles in various formulations:
Binders: provide cohesion in tablets, ensuring the medicine holds its shape
Sweeteners: mask unpleasant tastes in both liquid and solid medicines, improving patient compliance
Thickening agents: add viscosity to liquid medications like syrups, ensuring a smooth, consistent dose
Every excipient must undergo rigorous validation, with criteria assessing its function, compatibility with active ingredients, and overall impact on the drug’s efficacy. For example, disintegrants—a type of excipient—speed up dissolvability, ensuring the drug releases its active ingredients quickly and effectively.
While traditional sugar excipients remain prominent, natural alternatives like fenugreek seeds and locust bean gum (from the carob tree) are gaining popularity for clean-label products, offering pharmaceutical companies a broader range of excipient options.
Pharma grade sugars are also essential in producing bulk sugar-coated tablets, offering a protective layer that enhances taste, improves shelf life and makes tablets easier to swallow.
Bulk sugar is used in suspensions and glucose-based excipients, enabling pharmaceutical companies to meet the diverse needs of patients while upholding the highest standards of safety, stability and efficacy. These tailored formulations help improve therapeutic outcomes and make medicine delivery more patient-friendly across all age groups.
Sugar in vaccine stability and drug manufacturing
The role of sugar in the pharmaceuticals industry extends to vaccines, where the sugars lactose and sucrose can act as stabilisers. Stabilisers are designed to support the integrity of the active ingredients in a vaccine throughout the manufacturing, storing and transportation process. Without these stabilisers, temperature fluctuations and time could compromise vaccine potency, reducing their efficacy.
Drug manufacturers rely on having consistent access to pharma grade sugar for drug safety and efficacy and, ultimately, their reputation. One of the reasons sugar is used in drug formulations is to extend the medication’s shelf life and enhance the taste. Both these elements are crucial, which underlines the importance of being able to source high-quality sugar on a consistent and reliable basis.
Testing and quality assurance in pharmaceutical sugar
Given its use in drug and vaccine formulations, pharma grade sugar is subject to rigorous testing and quality assurance standards. The EP is Europe’s legal and scientific benchmark against which all pharmaceutical products produced and sold in many countries worldwide are measured. This ensures standards remain high and only products of the highest quality are produced.
Running in parallel with the EP is the BP, which sets the quality standards for the pharmaceutical and medicinal products produced and consumed in the UK and over 100 other countries. All sugars designated for use in the industry are given a British Pharmacopoeia Chemical reference substance (BPCRS), a document which outlines the exact chemical structure they must have to be classified fit for use.
The pharmaceutical industry demands reliability and consistency in sugar sourcing. Working with a trusted supplier ensures pharmaceutical professionals can meet strict regulatory standards, avoid supply chain disruptors, and deliver safe, high-quality medicines.
The functional properties of sugars used in medicines
Alongside the sucrose and invert sugar syrups highlighted above, other sugar products are used in medicines for their functional properties, such as flavourings and colourants. Although still using high-quality pure sugars, the nature of the medicine may not always require EP or BP. This is common in many over the counter medicines and unregulated treatments.
Highly specific functional properties are often needed for a medicine. Understanding how different sugars perform in specific formulations is crucial for selecting the right sugar for the right application. These can include intense sweetness, colourlessness, specific viscosity for pouring characteristics and textures for mouthfeel, or a certain density that supports active ingredients and excipients in suspension. More complex formulations of liquid sugars, invert sugar syrups and glucose syrup mixes are developed to meet these needs.
As the pharmaceutical industry continues to innovate, it is important for manufacturers to partner with reliable suppliers who meet the highest standards of safety and quality to ensure the best outcomes in drug formulation.
For more information on Ragus’ sugars, contact our Customer Services Team. For more sugar news and updates, continue browsing SUGARTALK and follow Ragus on LinkedIn.
Ben Eastick
A board member and co-leader of the business, Ben is responsible for our marketing strategy and its execution by the agency team he leads and is the guardian of our corporate brand vision. He also manages key customers and distributors.
In 2005, he took on the role of globally sourcing our ‘speciality sugars’. With his background in laboratory product testing and following three decades of supplier visits, his expertise means we get high quality, consistent and reliable raw materials from ethical sources.
