EU project develops mini-sphere drug delivery system
The LEDDS and SmPILL variant have been created by Sigmoid Pharma working with four university teams
The European Commission has welcomed the development of a novel drug delivery method based on mini-spheres in capsules by a €362,000 EU-funded research project.
These mini-spheres contain active pharmaceutical ingredients that are solubilised as an emulsion, microemulsion or suspension and coated either by conventional or novel coating technologies.
The idea is that they can be released slowly in the stomach and small intestine, with effects being fine-tuned by varying their make-up and size.
This LEDDS (Liquid/emulsion drug delivery system) and an advanced variant the SmPill (single-multiple pill) have been created by Ireland’s Sigmoid Pharma, a Dublin-based biotechnology company, working with four university research teams under the project. The teams were from: the School of Agriculture, Food Science and Veterinary Medicine in Ireland; Italy’s University of Padua; the Johann Wolfgang Goethe University in Germany, and Poland’s University of Wroclaw.
The key advance of the research, said the European Commission, is that it has enabled the use of molecules that might otherwise be hard for the body to absorb. And because these ingredients can vary widely in potency, in themselves and depending on the condition and patient they are trying to treat, the aim of the study was to create a sufficiently flexible manufacturing system.
‘It was necessary to calibrate the prototype with a range of drug types recognising that each drug has distinct characteristics and that the desired behaviour of the drug formulation will also depend on the therapeutic goal,’ said the EC.
The EU’s Marie Curie Project provided the funded for the research.
