Companies partner to improve vaginal rings

Published: 6-Feb-2019

Particle Sciences and Encube Ethicals have announced partnership to develop new drug delivery vaginal rings aimed at improving drug effectiveness and patient compliance

CDMO, Particle Sciences, has announced its partnership with leading Indian CMO, Encube Ethicals.

Under the partnership, the two companies will develop innovative intravaginal rings with the intent to out-license to biopharmaceutical marketing partners.

The partnership will focus on rings for the administration of existing approved drugs, improving drug effectiveness and patient compliance. The use of drug-eluting devices to provide sustained-release dosage forms has seen continued growth due to the ability to provide constant, localised, site-specific drug delivery. The market continues to be of interest as these devices can improve patient compliance, one of the greatest challenges in healthcare today.

Commenting on the partnership, Mr Mehul Shah, Founder and Managing Director of Encube Ethicals said: “We are deeply invested in finding innovative ways to deliver drugs that make the patient’s experience significantly better and safer. We hope to leverage Encube’s experience in Topical products development and manufacturing to bring impactful breakthrough innovations to the market. We are delighted to partner with Particle Sciences’ extremely talented team and excited to see the possibilities the effort creates.”

Both parties will leverage each other’s drug development and manufacturing strengths: Pennsylvania-based Particle Sciences has a proven track record and extensive expertise in the development and manufacturing of intravaginal ring devices and complex formulations, while Indian Encube Ethicals has strong capabilities in developing complex topical and transdermal delivery systems, with two decades of experience in commercial manufacturing of topical products for a variety of markets, including women’s health for multiple countries.

The project is Particle Sciences’ latest in the complex generics space using the 505(b)(2) US FDA regulatory pathway to develop new drugs that better meet the requirements of patients and physicians.

Dr Barbara Morgan, general manager of Particle Sciences said: “Our collaboration with Encube Ethicals is an important step in our work on complex pharmaceuticals and particularly toward our efforts to accelerate improved therapeutics through the use of the 505(b)(2) pathway.”

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