Posted by Poor drug solubility is one of the most challenging issues in drug development. Up to 90 % of all newly discovered drugs show insufficient aqueous solubility in their crystalline form, resulting in too low bioavailability, because the drug must dissolve in order to be absorbed and reach its pharmacological target. Many promising drug candidates are thus discontinued during early-stage development due to poor bioavailability resulting from low solubility. Molecular encapsulation with cyclodextrins has been a widely applied technology for enhancing the solubility and improving the bioavailability for decades. Several examples have been shown on this blog.
A new, alternative technology, the Dispersome® technology has been developed as a novel solubility enhancing approach that is based on using the protein beta-lactoglobulin (BLG) as novel pharmaceutical excipient. By mixing a drug compound with this by-product from cheese production, a unique amorphous composition of small molecule drugs and proteins is obtained.
The green technology of Hovione and Zerion Pharma has been shown to dramatically increase the solubility and bioavailability of poorly-soluble drugs, which is demonstrated by case studies. These co-amorphous drug-BLG formulations can be manufactured by spray drying.
A comparison of Dispersome® technology with CD encapsulation would be interesting.
Read more:
https://www.zerion.eu/technology
https://www.hovione.com/dispersome