Evonik has won this year’s CPHI Excellence in Pharma Award in the category “Finished Formulation”. The winning innovation is EUDRACAP® colon – the first ready-to-fill, functional capsule on the market to target the ileo-colonic region. This functional capsule enables the development of new breakthrough oral drugs that use novel APIs, while accelerating the drug development process. EUDRACAP® colon is available produced under good manufacturing practice (GMP) for clinical and commercial use.
“We are incredibly proud that EUDRACAP® colon has been recognized with a CPHI Award. By offering a solution for sensitive actives, while also simplifying formulation development and enabling faster clinical entry, EUDRACAP® colon will help to bring breakthrough therapies to patients sooner,” said Thilo Krapfl, Head of Oral Drug Delivery Solutions at Evonik Health Care.
EUDRACAP® colon was developed to enable the safe and effective oral delivery of sensitive active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) – such as live biotherapeutic products (LBPs), RNA, and biologics. These actives are used in the formulation of innovative drugs for the treatment of conditions such as obesity, HIV, or Cystic Fibrosis, as well as for local delivery such as for colorectal cancer and infections. There are currently more than 700 oral drug development programs using novel active ingredients. In fact, these new drug candidates make up around a third of all new oral drug developments in the pipeline.
“This innovation is more than just a technical achievement - EUDRACAP® colon offers a unique solution for delivering sensitive APIs that simply couldn’t be formulated any other way without risking damage or degradation,” said Dr. Bettina Hölzer, Global Product Manager Oral Drug Delivery Solutions at Evonik Health Care.
EUDRACAP® colon is the latest innovation in Evonik’s growing platform of functional capsules for oral drug delivery. This includes EUDRACAP® enteric for targeted drug release in the upper small intestine, EUDRACAP® Select for tailored CDMO services, and EUDRACAP® preclinic for early-stage development. The functional capsule platform is built on the trusted foundation of EUDRAGIT® polymers which is used in formulations across 80 countries and cited in over 23,000 patents.
The annual CPHI Excellence in Pharma Awards were established in 2004 to celebrate cross-industry innovators driving the industry forward. This year’s award was presented to Evonik at the CPHI pharmaceutical trade show in Frankfurt on October 28, 2025. In 2024, Evonik won in the category “Sustainability” for its plant-based squalene, PhytoSquene® and in 2022, in the category “Packaging and Drug Delivery” for a polymer-based drug delivery system for mRNA and nucleic acid delivery.
Evonik Health Care has been a leader in advanced drug delivery for decades, supporting pharmaceutical companies worldwide with comprehensive services for the development of complex oral and parenteral drug products. This includes pharmaceutical excipients, formulation development and the manufacture of clinical samples, as well as commercial drug products. Furthermore, the business serves as a CDMO for APIs and intermediates and has a strong focus on growth fields such as lipid-based mRNA and gene delivery, and cell culture solutions for biopharma applications.
