Roquette Freres of France, world's leading producer of polyols and starch derivatives conducted a series of seminars recently. Roquette operates in India through their agents Rhodia Chemicals and distributors Signet Chemical Corporation; a well-known supplier of excipients to the pharmaceutical industry.

"We are glad to be here and present our products to the enterprising Indian pharma Industry," said Dr Denis Simon, Technical Project & Development Manager of Roquette Freres.

Thomas Fourmaintraux, the Central Asian Sales Manager added, "The Indian pharma R&D professionals are not just knowledgeable but are very adventurous and curious to try out new products and look for alternative solutions.'' Headquartered in France, Roquette uses latest technology to transform maize, wheat and potato to essential raw materials and high quality excipients for the pharmaceutical industry.

Their products range from the very well known Mannitol to the latest starch derivative Lycatab C and Lycatab DSH; From Sorbitol to the new generation Hydroxypropyl Betacyclodextrin used for encapsulation and drip-feed drug delivery systems. Roquette also manufacturers specialty Pyrogen Free grades of Dextrose Monohydrate, Xylitol, Mannitol and Sorbitol for injectable solutions; non-cariogenic sugar substitutes such as Lycasin apart from other products. Signet stocks all these products on a regular basis throughout the year.

Full day seminars were organized in Bangalore and Hyderabad coupled with customer specific technical presentations at Delhi, Chennai and Mumbai. They also launched their new product Glycolys a very famous sodium starch glycolate earlier known as Explotab.

Inaugurating both the seminars; Harish Shah, managing partner of Signet commented "Roquette business in India is growing exponentially. Their products are of the first choice for the formulators and are far superior than any producers' products. There is enough technical data to back this claim." Colin Humphrey, the Country Manager of Rhodia Chemicals India was also present in the seminar.