By PCCA

This morning at International Seminar 2019, attendees packed into the ballroom to hear our Chief Scientific Officer Gus Bassani, PharmD, deliver his PCCA Innovation presentation. This is where Gus reveals the much-anticipated new PCCA products every year. This time, he introduced the audience to VersaBase® Anhydrous HRT, the pharmacy compounding industry’s first proprietary anhydrous base developed specifically to deliver female bioidentical hormones through the skin, such as estriol, estradiol and progesterone.

PCCA Chief Scientific Officer Gus Bassani introduces
International Seminar attendees to VersaBase Anhydrous HRT.

This new base is the latest addition to the VersaBase family of vehicles, and it uses a patent-pending delivery system that improves both the solubility of hormones and their permeation into and through the skin. This is typically difficult to achieve with an anhydrous base, but our Director of Research and Development Daniel Banov, MS, RPh, and his team have spent their careers inventing products that surpass what most consider possible. This one is no exception. VersaBase Anhydrous HRT performed comparably to VersaBase Cream (the industry standard for women’s topical HRT) during in vitro testing that demonstrated it delivering our Special Micronized Progesterone into and through human skin tissue.

VersaBase Anhydrous HRT also complements our newer anhydrous bases that we first released in 2018 to address changing needs in the compounding industry. Like PermE8™ Anhydrous Gel and W06™ Anhydrous Topical Gel, this newest base has water activity lower than 0.6 (Aw < 0.6), which qualifies it as anhydrous according to the standards in the latest version of USP General Chapter <795>. Therefore, formulations in these bases have longer default beyond-use dates (BUDs), which the chapter allows for nonaqueous dosage forms. This can save compounders thousands of dollars per formulation because the medications do not have to be stability tested in order to have the longer BUD. It also makes compounds more convenient for patients, since they won’t have to return to the pharmacy as often for prescription refills. To increase efficiency further, most of the VersaBase Anhydrous HRT formulas that we have tested and published in the PCCA formula database do not require the use of an ointment mill, which reduces both compounding time and cleanup time.

Also on The PCCA Blog: Why Water Activity Matters in Pharmacy Compounding

PCCA members with Clinical Services access can visit our formula database to see the numerous VersaBase Anhydrous HRT formulas that we have already developed to help eet the needs of patients. If they have questions about compounding with this base, they can contact our clinical compounding pharmacists at 800.331.2498.

These statements are provided for educational purposes only. They have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration, and are not to be interpreted as a promise, guarantee or claim of therapeutic efficacy or safety. The references cited did not necessarily evaluate PCCA products or formulas included in these statements. The information contained herein is not intended to replace or substitute for conventional medical care, or encourage its abandonment.