Malaysia: Palm oil base for pharmaceutical & cosmetic products

Oleopharma Sdn Bhd, in partnership with Redhacare Sdn Bhd, University of Malaya, Malaysia and Imed Lab Sdn Bhd are introducing a robust and natural base cream for use in the production of pharmaceutical and cosmetic products – in a semi solid dosage form. This product is known as HAMIN™.

Oleopharma Sdn Bhd was established as a JV company between Redhacare Sdn Bhd and University of Malaya. This is the first JV set up between a private company and a university in Malaysia. Oleopharma Sdn Bhd then engaged Imed Lab Sdn Bhd as an exclusive distributor for HAMIN™ for the Malaysian market.

The Halal Industry Development Corporation (HDC) facilitated this endeavour as part of its agenda to foster industry players to grow the Halal industry.

Redhacare Sdn Bhd is a Good Manufacturing Practice (GMP) & Good Quality Control – Laboratory Practice Consultancy (GQC-LP) and a GMP and GQC-LP System Provider Company specialising in the design, construction, commissioning and qualification for the sterile & non-sterile pharmaceutical facilities, biopharmaceutical facilities and laboratories facilities.

Redhacare also provide services in product registration and Bioequivalence Study. As Redhacare’s focus is on GMP, it has furthered its services by focusing on GMP education. Cyber Putra College was formed to provide certificate and diploma programmes in GMP.

HAMIN™ was developed and formulated from a mixture of Malaysian local palm oil and palm kernel oil in which palm oil is identified as a one of our National Key Economic Areas (NKEA).

HAMIN™ was innovated to substitute the synthetic and chemical formulated base widely used in the manufacturing process of consumer products in the pharmaceutical and cosmetics industry. HAMIN™ is proven to be totally safe and does not exhibit any toxicological effect in animal model testing.

An Acute Oral Toxicity Study in Female Rats & Dermal Irritation Study in Rabbits was conducted by Covance (http://www.covance.com/) in United Kingdom (UK).  A further clinical trial test on humans (HUMAN REPEAT INSULIN PATCH TESTING) was also carried out with Reading Scientific Services Ltd, UK (www.rssl.com) in order to establish the safety data on human subjects according to EUROPEAN and UNITED STATES STANDARD.

Results from both clinical trials conclude HAMIN™ was found to be stable, non-irritating to the body, chemically and physiologically inert, compatible with a variety of drugs, synthetic, chemical, organic and natural base active ingredients, stable during storage without pharmacological activity or interference with the release of drug or active ingredient substances.

HAMIN™ is reported to provide products of esthetical value and easy to process during manufacturing. Therefore, it is indicated to be most useful for biotechnology application especially in pharmaceutical and cosmetic products development such as creams, ointments, Nano-Emulsions, Liposomes and Injectables forms.

HAMIN™ was also developed with economic scales in mind. The semi solid dosage and finished base are offered at competitive prices, reversing the norm of pharmaceutical and cosmetic products and practices in extensive pricing of natural and organic base ingredients. In creating added values for HAMIN™, the product is currently being recommended by HDC (Halal Development Corporation) and valued by JAKIM (Jabatan Kemajuan Islam Malaysia) for Halal certification. HAMIN™ is the first commercialized raw material base for pharmaceutical and cosmetic products derived from palm oil in Malaysia.