Encap in colonic drug delivery licensing deal with London University
10 September 2009
Encap Drug Delivery, a provider of development and manufacturing
services to the pharmaceutical industry, has entered into a licensing
agreement with The School of Pharmacy, University of London for the use
of their drug delivery system, Phloral. This unique coating technology
is designed to target the release of drugs to the colon and will form
part of a range of colonic delivery systems promoted by Encap under the
name Encode (Encap colonic delivery).
Recently colonic drug delivery has gained increased importance, not
just for treatment of local diseases associated with the colon, eg
Crohn's disease, ulcerative colitis, colorectal cancer and IBS, but also
for its potential as a site for the absorption of certain molecules due
to the decreased levels of efflux transporters and membrane-bound
metabolic enzymes known as cytochromes. Its potential suitability for
the oral delivery of peptides and proteins, oligonucleotides and
vaccines is also an area of increasing interest.
Existing colonic systems generally involve coating the dosage unit
with polymeric materials that will not normally dissolve in the low pH
of the stomach or upper intestine but will dissolve in the higher pH of
the lower intestine. Coatings that rely on a pH dependant system have
the potential to be unreliable due to the large intra and inter patient
variability in transit times and luminal pH. The new Phloral technology
represents a significant improvement in colonic delivery providing
‘fail-safe’ delivery of drug to the target site by employing two
complimentary mechanisms to trigger drug release. As well as a pH
dependant coating it also incorporates a component which is broken down
specifically by the microbiota in the colonic region.
The power of the new technology has been demonstrated in a recently
published scintigraphic study in healthy volunteers (Ibekwe, Khela,
Evans and Basit, Alimentary Phamacology & Therapeutics
28(7):911-6, 2008). Dosage units with the combination coating all
disintegrated in the colonic area as desired whereas many units coated
exclusively with a commercially available pH coating passed through the
gastrointestinal tract intact and failed to disintegrate.
One of the drawbacks to colonic delivery is the relatively low amount
of water that is available for dissolution of dosage forms in this part
of the gastrointestinal tract. The combination of a reliable colonic
targeting technology and the delivery of drugs in a liquid dosage form
using Encap’s liquid fill technologies may provide a significant advance
for the delivery of a wide range of drugs to the colon.
Encap’s Chief Operating Officer, Dr Stephen Brown said “This deal
with The School of Pharmacy is an ideal strategic fit for Encap Drug
Delivery as we already have a portfolio of drug delivery technologies
available for oral dose forms. The ability to use the Phloral technology
combined with the flexibility afforded by our liquid fill hard capsule
technology, allows us to now offer clients a system with the confidence
that colonic delivery will be achieved.”
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