Technology watch in formulation

Since the early 1980s, technology watch has become an essential working methodology in companies, institutions and research laboratories. In 2021, it is being extended to a number of fields, including formulation. In this article, we will be making extensive use of articles published in Techniques de l'ingénieur dealing with technology watch. In order to avoid repetition, we will assume that those wishing to familiarize themselves with monitoring techniques in the field of formulation are already familiar with the mechanisms involved, and that they are also familiar with the main principles and tools of technology monitoring. This approach allows us to get straight to the point, and to present the supplements strictly necessary for the development of a formulation-specific watch.

As we shall see later in this article, formulation intelligence is based primarily on validated information from scientific and technological sources, as well as on the detection of websites relevant to the subject. The main principles and aspects of the information accessible via this technique can be found in the article [R 120] .

Nowadays, formulation has to take account of new problems, including those linked to the toxicity of the products that may be used. REACH standards are a case in point. It's also worth noting that, as this field becomes increasingly important, the number of references concerning it is constantly growing. It is therefore clear that automatic information analysis techniques (patents, scientific information and website selection) are needed. In this context, a distinction is made between the notion of a targeted and very precise search versus a broad (holistic) search, which is then analyzed to find out who is doing what, where and how.