New drug delivery system for biopharmaceuticals

Controlled Therapeutics (Scotland), a wholly owned subsidiary of US biopharmaceutical company Cytokine PharmaSciences, has secured a £500,000 award from the UK government via the Scottish Executive Spur plus programme to assist in the development of its next generation, polymer drug delivery system.

The £1.5m project to develop a new biodegradable dosing system for both classical and the new biopharmaceutical drugs, such as interferon and EPO, is now underway at the company's r&d and manufacturing headquarters in East Kilbride, Scotland.

'Unlike pegylation, our new technology does not result in the chemical modification of the drug,' said Dr Magnus Nicolson, Controlled Therapeutics' managing director. 'In our new linear polymers the drug is trapped in the pores within the hydrogel matrix until it escapes, either by erosion of the matrix or by diffusing out of the delivery system into the systemic circulation. Importantly, both processes can be timed to enable sustained release of the drug.'

According to Dr Janet Halliday, research and de-velopment director, Hydrogel matrices are friendly environments for proteins. 'We believe our formulations will greatly increase the stability of these drugs, giving our preparations significantly greater storage stability and longer shelf life,' she said. One of the main advantages offered by this delivery system will be predictable drug release, avoiding the spiking often seen with this type of product and reducing side effects. 'It is hoped that the reduced frequency of dosing required using the new linear polymers will increase patient compliance, thus lowering the cost of therapy.'