Encap agrees colonic drug delivery licensing deal
Encap Drug Delivery, a global provider of oral drug delivery and pharmaceutical development services, has entered into a licensing agreement with The School of Pharmacy, University of London, for the use of its PHLORAL drug delivery system.
Encap Drug Delivery, a global provider of oral drug delivery and pharmaceutical development services, has entered into a licensing agreement with The School of Pharmacy, University of London, for the use of its PHLORAL drug delivery system.
PHLORAL is a coating technology 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).
Colonic drug delivery is gaining increased importance, not just for treatment of diseases associated with the colon, such as 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 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. But pH-dependant systems are potentially unreliable due to large patient variability in transit times and luminal pH.
The PHLORAL technology provides "fail-safe" delivery of the drug to the target site by employing two complementary mechanisms to trigger drug release: as well as a pH-dependant coating it also incorporates a component that is broken down specifically by the microbiota in the colonic region.
"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," said Encap's chief operating officer, Dr Stephen Brown. "The ability to use the PHLORAL technology combined with the flexibility afforded by our liquid fill hard capsule technology, allows us to now offer a system with the confidence that colonic delivery will be achieved."