A Korean SME is performing collaboration projects with pharmaceutical companies to develop nanoparticle solutions for either markerted drugs or new drug substance. In case the technology is used in the early stage of new drug developments it can greatly increase the efficacy of new drug screening and also the same nanoparticle formulation can be conveniently used later in the clinical stages relieving the extra burden of formulation development.
Innovation utilizes only safe materials widely used in the industry and do not use organic solvents or water in the process. As the output of process is in the form of powder, it can be directly used for next formulation steps without typically needed drying processes of other nanoparticle technologies.
Innovation takes a new approach to make nanoparticles. Compared with "top-down" approches such as wet-milling, it is a "bottom-up" approach to control the particle growth of dissolved molecules. The process is composed of two steps. In the first step the target drug is dispersed within a solid lipid typically by melting and solidifying in nanosizes, and in the second step the solid lipid is removed with supercritical fluid (CO2) extraction to provide nanoparticulate powder of the target substance.
Innovation vastly increased surface area and allows increased dissolution in the body and consequently increased bioavailabiliy by making nanoparticles, which is a critical factor in the formulation of pharmaceutical and neutraceutical products especially for poorly soluble substances. Also, increased aqueous stability enables intravenous products without using harsh surfactants for pharmaceuticals and beverage type products for nutraceuticals.
The company is building its own R&D pipeline of incrementally modified drugs. One of the projects is the development of Taxane (Paclitaxel/Docetaxel) intravenous products without using toxic surfactants. Recently in an in-vitro test the nanoparticle colloidal dispersions of Taxanes showed comparable cytotoxic efficacies with Taxanes dissolved in DMSO strongly implying the possibility of new Taxane products without the adverse hypersensitivity problem and with the passive cancer targeting(EPR) effect.
Innovative Aspects:
Advantages in comparison with other technologies in the field are:
- Safety: It uses only safe materials. No organic solvent is used
- Production scalability : Easily controllable and scalable production processes.
- Powder form output: Directly usable for next formulation processes without typically needed drying steps like lyophilisation or spray drying.
- Controllability of particle sizes: Particles can be optimized based on the specific needs such as bioavailability or stability.
