Pharmaceutical excipients

Excipients are the inactive ingredients that make up most of a tablet's mass: lactose, cellulose, starch, coatings and binders, mostly from milk, wood and maize.

Fine chemicals · Pharmaceutical · No. 97

• Product family
• Feedstock: Crops and biomass
• not published as global tonnage
• HS 391239

Most of a tablet is not medicine at all but milk sugar, wood cellulose and starch.

Chart: Illustration: Pharmaceutical excipients

Where it comes from

Chart: Map of where it comes from

Lactose is crystallised from cheese whey, cellulose from wood or cotton pulp, using about 1.1-1.3 t of pulp per tonne of MCC, and starch from maize.

Three things to know

1. Roquette bought IFF Pharma Solutions, maker of Avicel cellulose, for up to $2.85 billion in 2025.
2. India's excipient market is only about $400 million, small beside its huge generic output, and grows 6.9% a year.
3. After deaths from contaminated cough syrups, India made DEG and EG testing mandatory for exported syrups in 2023.

The journey

1. 1 Farm and forestWhey from cheese, wood pulp, maize
2. 2 Primary processingLactose crystallised, cellulose hydrolysed, starch milled
3. 3 Pharma refiningMilled or spray-dried under excipient GMP
4. 4 FormulationBlended with API, pressed and coated
5. 5 TabletsFillers, binders, disintegrants and coatings

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