Taste Masking Solutions
Taste plays a critical role in ensuring patient compliance, especially for children and older adults who are most sensitive to unpleasant flavors. At Roquette, we believe that a positive patient experience is central to therapeutic success. Our taste-masking solutions go beyond reducing bitterness. They help drive adherence, satisfaction, and better healthcare outcomes.
Taste-Masking Solutions: Put Patient Experience First
With decades of scientific leadership in cyclodextrin and maltodextrin technology, we have built a portfolio of taste-masking excipients that help formulators tackle the toughest challenges. Our solutions are designed to block or reduce bitterness without compromising the efficacy or stability of the active ingredient, while simultaneously enhancing solubility.
From liquids and chewables to orally disintegrating tablets (ODTs) and other patient-friendly formats, our excipients give developers the flexibility to create medicines that are effective, appealing, and easier to take. With Roquette, improving taste isn’t just about making medicines tolerable. It’s about making them easier to administer, improving adherence and outcomes in real-world use.
Taste-Masking Solutions Tailored to Patient Needs
Creating an oral dosage form that dissolves quickly, remains stable, and reaches patients in its intended strength requires excipients engineered for performance. Roquette’s solutions include scientifically proven excipients backed by technical insight and regulatory know-how.
Beta-cyclodextrin
Roquette’s KLEPTOSE® beta-cyclodextrin is a native cyclodextrin that harnesses inclusion complexation to surround and protect delicate compounds at the molecular level. This interaction enhances aqueous solubility, shields against degradation, and supports palatability by taste masking the bitterness of antibiotics or pediatric syrups. With its plant-based origin and proven safety, it offers a versatile option for improving the stability and patient acceptability of oral formulations.
Hydroxypropyl beta-cyclodextrins
For molecules requiring advanced solubilization, KLEPTOSE® HPB and HP hydroxypropyl beta-cyclodextrin (HPβCD) deliver exceptional performance in dissolving poorly soluble compounds. HPβCD improves both solubilization and palatability in bitter APIs. They enable higher drug loads while supporting smooth, efficient manufacturing from lab-scale to commercial production, all with consistent bioavailability.
Pea maltodextrin
Plant-based KLEPTOSE® Linecaps pea maltodextrin offers a sustainable approach to bitterness blocking that has been shown to be just as efficacious as cyclodextrins. Particularly effective in liquids, chewables, and ODTs, it has been established in clinical taste panel results to be well suited for pediatric and geriatric applications where taste is critical to adherence.
Tailored Excipient Selection
With the support of Roquette’s Customer Technical Services (CTS), formulation teams can help in selecting between cyclodextrins and pea maltodextrin based on the API bitterness profile. We consider API solubility, substitution type, and delivery needs when assisting you in selecting the best excipient. This tailored approach streamlines development, accelerates timelines, and ensures that each formulation benefits from Roquette’s depth of expertise.
Patient Compliance
Roquette helps developers create better-tasting pediatric syrups, chewables, and geriatric ODTs that patients are more willing to take. This directly improves adherence and enhances the overall treatment experience across pediatric, geriatric, and sensitive populations.
Our Services and Expertise
Roquette combines advanced excipients with specialized services to help formulators design more effective and patient-friendly medicines. Our Customer Technical Services (CTS) team works closely with developers to address taste-masking challenges at every stage of formulation. For example, CTS provides hands-on-guidance in masking bitterness in antibiotics using HPβCD. From API characterization and excipient selection to prototype evaluation, CTS leverages scientific expertise to accelerate development and reduce risk.
KLEPTOSE® beta-cyclodextrin, KLEPTOSE® HP and HPB hydroxypropyl beta-cyclodextrin, and KLEPTOSE® Linecaps pea maltodextrin are manufactured to pharma-grade standards, with complete documentation and global regulatory support. Roquette provides detailed dossiers and technical packages to help ensure smooth submissions across major markets.
Through ongoing R&D, Roquette continues to expand the applications of cyclodextrins and plant-based excipients in taste masking. Recent studies have demonstrated the efficacy of KLEPTOSE® Linecaps pea maltodextrin in masking the bitterness of caffeine anhydrous through hot melt extrusion processing. Innovations like these enable higher drug loads, broader formulation options, and improved patient acceptability, helping customers bring new medicines to market more efficiently while keeping patient experience front of mind.
Taste-Masking Excipients Designed for Patient Compliance
Roquette offers a targeted range of excipients designed to mask bitterness and enhance patient compliance. Below are the key products from your brief, each linked to its product page/selection guide.
KLEPTOSE® beta-cyclodextrin
A native beta-cyclodextrin with pharmacopeal acceptance (EP/USP/JP) that enables inclusion complexation to enhance solubility and supports taste-masking strategies.
KLEPTOSE® HP and HPB hydroxypropyl beta-cyclodextrin
Designed to support solubilization and taste masking while maintaining API performance in oral formulations. KLEPTOSE® HP offers higher substitution for greater solubilizing efficiency, ideal for challenging APIs, while KLEPTOSE® HPB provides balanced performance for formulations requiring both solubility and palatability optimization.
KLEPTOSE® Linecaps pea maltodextrin
A plant-based, TiO₂-free excipient that offers natural bitterness blocking and clean-label appeal. Derived from yellow peas, it is ideal for liquids, chewables, and ODTs formulated for sensitive or nutraceutical populations seeking more natural, patient-friendly solutions.