Novel extraction method promises ecological low-cost cardiac digoxin production
used cardiovascular drug using an ecologically friendly and
water-based extraction method, which could yield three-fold cost
savings over conventional approaches.
The method for extracting medicinal substances - glycosides - from foxglove (Digitalis lanata) to generate pure digoxin has been developed by a Moscow-based research team at the State Research Institute of Organic Chemistry & Technology and the All-Russian Institute of Medical and Aromatic Herbs led by Galina Mikhailovna Komissarova. The cost-savings would come from cutting waste and simpler processing, in comparison to conventional methods.
Cardiovascular disease(CV) remains the number one killer in the developed world with no signs of this figure decreasing and is a lucrative market for drugmakers, with our increasing sedentary lifestyles. The European cardiovascular drugs market is expected to reach $36.3 billion (€28.9 billion) in 2012, according to a Frost and Sullivan study.
Digoxin is the most commonly used glycoside to treat heart failure, still ranking among the top 10 most used prescriptions drugs despite being introduced decades ago.
The scientists have changed how D. lanata is grown, picked, dried and stored to produce raw materials with a high content of active enzymes used in the production of the finished compound but this information is protected and confidential, said the International Science and Technology Centre (ISTC) in Moscow. The team extracted enzymes and compared their quality with activity standards before fermentation of raw materials to obtain digoxin.
Other methods of digoxin production tend to make use of unstable fermentation processes and costly chemicals, such as methanol and ethanol. In addition, rival processes are more laborious, as purification steps are needed, according to the ISTC.
"Additional financing is necessary to reach the final stage and to initiate large-scale production. The interest for marketing this medication is quite high and the researchers hope to find investors as soon as possible," Olga Radkevich, technology presentation assistant at ISTC, told In-Pharmatechnologist.com.
The digoxin project was supported by the ISTC, a non-profit non-commercial organisation that supports basic and applied research and technology developments.
