The Food and Drug Administration is seeking a small business to potentially supply the federal agency with a chewing gum tester. Despite the frivolous sounding nature of the announcement, the search is a serious one, and apparently a growing need. Chewing gum-based pharmaceuticals (such as nicotine gum) are already in use in the United States, and the FDA is looking for a way to measure the dosage and delivery (dissolution) of the medication in such products.
The FDA is not looking for just any chewing gum tester, but the Erweka DRT-3 (or its equal), manufactured by Erweka, a German company that produces pharmaceutical and life-science testing equipment. The DRT-3 can be seen in action here:
According to the documents accompanying the notice, the FDA may be looking to establish a standard for testing chewing gum-based pharmaceuticals on the assumption that the gum-based method of drug delivery may become more widely used:
The FDA has some very specific criteria in mind for its gum chewing tester, including:
- The angular displacement of the upper jaw shall be adjustable between 10° – 180°, movement frequency adjustable between 20 – 60 cycles per minute.
- Distance of upper and lower jaw in closed position adjustable -between 0-10 mm.
- Jaws shall be acid proofed stainless steel with blasted surface for a better grip.
There is no requirement that the machine must be able to walk and chew gum at the same time.
