Pharmanovia has allied with Nanoform to apply nanoparticle technologies and formulation know-how to its portfolio of established pharmaceutical brands.
Working out of a site in the UK, Pharmanovia has grown over the past nine years into a specialty pharma business with a portfolio of more than 20 branded drugs in 140 markets. Pharmanovia will now work with Nanoform to improve some of the products, starting with “an iconic branded medicine” that could benefit from enhanced bioavailability.
Christian Jones, chief commercial officer at Nanoform, explained the potential benefits of using the recrystallization method controlled expansion of supercritical solutions (CESS) to control the solubility of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API).
“By enhancing the bioavailability of established therapeutics, it may be possible to lower the dose required for therapeutic effect and thereby reduce adverse side effects. This could also potentially enable the size of oral pills to be reduced, helping millions of patients, including elderly and pediatric patients, suffering from dysphagia, or difficulty swallowing,” said Jones.
Nanoform uses CESS to control the solubility of an API in supercritical carbon dioxide in an approach that is free from excipients and organic solvents. While some supercritical technologies predate CESS, Nanoform pitches its approach as an improvement because of its use of controlled mass transfer, flow and pressure reduction.
CESS was not available when many medicines on the market today were in development. As such, Jones sees value in taking a second look at formulations to see what is possible using modern technologies.
“There is a great opportunity to further improve and differentiate these products to benefit patients quickly. Such improvements could include lower dosages, faster onset of action, fewer side effects, pediatric versions, and improved patient compliance. Additionally, it may be possible to repurpose established brands for delivery by different administration routes that are enabled by a nanoparticle formulation,” said the Nanoform executive.
Nanoform is pitching its technologies as one way to achieve patient-centricity. By making tablets easier to swallow, enabling fewer tablets or capsules, or changing an IV delivery to an oral pill or an injection to a patch, technologies can potentially simplify the delivery of drugs, lower overall health care system costs, and increase the likelihood of better patient outcomes.