Tailoring drug half-life for enhanced delivery

Published: 9-May-2012

Biological drugs can have short plasma half-lives, which can result in reduced bioavailability, requiring larger and more frequent doses of medication and leading to greater incidence of side-effects, reduced patient compliance and increased healthcare costs. The concept of fusing small molecules to albumin to extend the half-life of drugs is well established, and a new technology from Novozymes permits flexibility allowing drug development scientists to tailor protein or peptide half-life to specific medical needs.

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Different techniques have been developed to extend serum half-life of protein therapeutics, but these have not offered the flexibility to adjust the drug’s half-life to suit specific patient needs. Now Novozymes believes that albumin fusion technology is set to change that by allowing flexible control of the half-life of biologicals.

Rising healthcare costs are putting pressure on researchers to create more effective, tailored drugs. At the same time, pharmaceutical companies are increasingly finding it a challenge to take drugs through clinical trials. In response, researchers are investing in the development of biological drugs that take a much more targeted approach.

A common problem when using biological drugs is that they can have short plasma half-lives, which can result in reduced bioavailability because the human body clears the drug in as little as seconds. As a consequence, patients suffering from chronic conditions require larger and more frequent dosages of medication, which can lead to greater incidence of side-effects, reduced patient compliance and increased healthcare costs.

To address these issues, there has been a focus on developing technologies that can extend serum half-life of protein-based therapeutics. The most common methods currently being employed are those that increase hydrodynamic volume (PEGylation) or those that use FcRn-mediated recycling (albumin fusions).

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