Quetiapine fumarate is a drug used to treat schizophrenia, a psychotic disorder. It is always a challenge to ensure schizophrenic patients to comply to their medication. Our invention is a patient friendly medicated chocolate containing quetiapine fumarate for schizophrenic patients. Non-compliance to medications is a serious healthcare issue. Non-adherence to pharmaceutical therapy is common when patients are required to take medications on a long-term basis and it has been found to be particularly prevalent in the case of schizophrenia disorders, which require continued use of a drug for daily functioning (Chandra et al., 2014). According to Chandra et al. (2014), the non-compliance rate of schizophrenia patients in that study is 41.9%. The reasons of non-compliance among schizophrenia patients include patient-related factors such as age, employment status and poor insight about the disease (Chandra et al., 2014). Schizophrenia patients usually experience symptoms such as delusions, hallucinations, disorganized thinking and speech which make it difficult to ensure that they comply to the medications. The quetiapine fumarate chocolate tablet is developed as a patient friendly dosage form to tackle the non-compliance issue of the schizophrenic patients. Hence, this will help to contribute to good health and wellbeing (SDG 3). The medicated chocolate was produced by melting cocoa butter substitute at temperature of 50 degree Celsius by using oven. Then, cocoa powder, soy lecithin and quetiapine fumarate powder were added into the melted cocoa butter and mixed well. The mixture was casted into a silicone mould and left at the room temperature until it becomes solid. The solidified chocolate was removed from the mould and stored in HDPE bottle. The medicated chocolate was uniform in weight (4.611 g), diameter (25.327 mm), height (12.856) and had sufficient hardness (10.985 kg), friability of less than 1% (0.026%), fast disintegration time (6.34 – 9.21 minutes) and melting point of 34 -36°C. It is palatable as tested in the human volunteer panels. The project was in collaboration with Espray Sdn. Bhd. for the scale up with letter of intent for collaboration in the attachment. Research work on development of medicated chocolate have been conducted extensively and produced 3 publications in international journals as shown in attachment. A patent has been filed with evidence in attachment. The medicated chocolate is suitable for schizophrenic patients who have difficulty to comply to medication. With this invention, non-compliance issue can be tacked and hence SDG 3 – Good Health and Well Being can be achieved. The processing method is simple, environmental friendly, cost effective and easily scale up in the industry. The invention is an integration of food technology into pharmaceutical products. The product comes in a box with 6 chocolate per box.
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