Because of casehardenign effect of amorphous paclitaxel, residual solvents, methylene chloride and emthanol could not be reduced to the maximum value allowed, 600 ppm and 3,000 ppm, in accord with the guidelines issued by the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH, 1997), using rotary evaporation and successive drying in a vacuum oven. However, methylene chloride and methanol were reduced to 486 ppm and 403 ppm, respectively using supercritical $CO_2$ on purified paclitaxel. The optimum pressure and operating time were 80 bar and 30 min at fixed operating temperature ($40^{circ}C$). This approach serves as a novel application of supercritical fluid extraction to remove residual solvents from active pharmaceutical ingredients.