Medherant, a developer of innovative transdermal drug delivery treatments for pain and CNS diseases, has been awarded a medicines manufacturing grant by Innovate UK.
The grant will enable the company to buy equipment and move forward with its plans to extend its pilot scale manufacture of patches formulated with its unique TEPI Patch technology to GMP manufacture for clinical trials.
The patent protected TEPI Patch technology enables the development of drug-in-adhesive patch products with better adhesion and more efficient delivery of drugs through the skin for a prolonged period.
Medherant's first product, an Ibuprofen TEPI Patch, is in Phase I clinical development with initial results expected in Q4 2018. Medherant's business model is to develop novel best-in-class products to then out-license to established pharmaceutical companies for commercialisation.
Medherant recently installed its own pilot-scale patch manufacturing plant and has successfully produced non-GMP patches of the Ibuprofen TEPI Patch. The company has also produced TEPI Patches for third parties interested in assessing the suitability of the TEPI technology for their drugs.
Medherant has a novel high-throughput permeation assessment process to rapidly identify formulations that meet the target drug release profile, enabling the creation of candidate patch formulations for companies in only 2-3 months.