Recent Patents on Drug Delivery & Formulation - Volume 8, Issue 3, 2014

It has been documented that telomere-associated cellular senescence may contribute to certain age-related disorders, including an increase in cancer incidence, wrinkling and diminished skin elasticity, atherosclerosis, osteoporosis, weight loss, age-related cataract, glaucoma and others. Shorter telomere length in leukocytes was associated crosssectionally with cardiovascular disorders and their risk factors, including pulse pressure and vascular aging, obesity, vascular dementia, diabetes, coronary artery disease, myocardial infarction (although not in all studies), cellular turnover and exposure to oxidative and inflammatory damage in chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It has been proposed that telomere length may not be a strong biomarker of survival in older individuals, but it may be an informative biomarker of healthy aging. The data reveal that telomere dynamics and changes in telomerase activity are consistent elements of cellular alterations associated with changes in proliferative state and in this article these processes are consequently considered as the new therapeutic drug targets for physiological control with advanced drug delivery and nutritional formulations. In particular, the presence of highly specific correlations and early causal relationships between telomere loss in the absence of telomerase activity and replicative senescence or crisis, and from the other side, telomerase reactivation and cell immortality, point to new and important treatment strategies or the therapeutic manipulation during treatment of age related disorders and cancer. Once better controls and therapeutic treatments for aging and age-related disorders are achieved, cellular rejuvenation by manipulating telomeres and enzyme telomerase activity may reduce some of the physiological declines that accompany aging. In this work, we raise and support a therapeutic concept of using non-hydrolyzed forms of naturally occurring imidazoledipeptide based compounds carnosine and carcinine, making it clinically possible that slowing down the rate of telomere shortening could slow down the human aging process in specific tissues where proliferative senescence is known to occur with the demonstrated evidence of telomere shortening appeared to be a hallmark of oxidative stress and disease. The preliminary longitudinal studies of elderly individuals suggest that longer telomeres are associated with better survival and an advanced oral nutritional support with non-hydrolyzed carnosine (or carcinine and patented compositions thereof) and patented N-acetylcarnosine lubricant eye drops are useful therapeutic tools of a critical telomere length maintenance that may fundamentally be applied in the treatment of age-related sight-threatening eye disorders, prolong life expectancy, increase survival and chronological age of an organism in health control, smoking behavior and disease.

Nanoformulations (NF) are widely explored as potential alternatives for traditional ophthalmic formulation approaches. The effective treatment of ocular diseases using conventional eye drops is often hampered by factors such as: physiological barriers, rapid elimination, protein binding, and enzymatic drug degradation. Combined, these factors are known to contribute to reduced ocular residence time and poor bioavailability. Recent research studies demonstrated that NF can significantly enhance the therapeutic efficacy and bioavailability of ocular drugs, compared to the established ophthalmic drug delivery strategies. The research studies resulted in a number of patent inventions, reporting a significant increase in therapeutic efficacy for various chronic ocular disease states of both the anterior and posterior ocular segments. This article reviews these patent disclosures in detail and emphasizes the therapeutic advantages conferred by the following nanoformulation approaches: Calcium Phosphate (CaP) nanoparticles, Liposomes, Nanoemulsions, Nanomicelles, and Hydrogels. The nanoformulation approaches were shown to enhance the ocular bioavailability by reducing the drugprotein binding, increasing the corneal resident time, enhancing the drug permeability and providing a sustained drug release. Further, the article discusses United States Food and Drug Administration (USFDA) approved ocular drugs employing nanotechnology and future developments. It should be noted that, despite the potential therapeutic promise demonstrated by nanotechnology for ocular drug delivery, the bench to bed transition from patent inventions to marketed drug products has been insignificant. Majority of the discussed technologies are still in development and testing phase for commercial viability. Further, studies are in progress to assess ocular tolerance and nanotoxicity for prolonged use of NF.

Oral administration of Insulin, however, is extremely difficult due to its extremely low bioavailability. Development of oral Insulin formulations requires overcoming obstacles, such as low permeability of large molecules, lack of lipophilicity, and inactivation or rapid enzymatic degradation in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The successful oral delivery of Insulin involves overcoming the barrier of enzymatic degradation, achieving epithelial permeability, and conserving the bioactivity of the drug during formulation processing. Strategies proposed to maximize oral Insulin bioavailability in Insulin delivery systems, to overcome barriers, and to develop safe and effective therapies, by using specific excipients, such as absorption enhancers, enzyme inhibitors, and mucoadhesive polymers, and using composition allowing protection of Insulin from the harsh environment in the GI tract. The present review includes study of patents on oral Insulin delivery. All the patents in the present review are arranged and interconnected in such a way to improve viewer’s knowledge at a glance. The comparative comments and discussions on the entitled topic make it easier to understand.

Eye inflammation, if untreated at right time poses the risk of vision loss. Several categories of drugs are available in the global market, but corticosteroids are still used for the treatment of ocular inflammation including anterior/ posterior uveitis, age related macular degeneration (AMD) and post cataract surgery inflammation. Although corticosteroids have well-documented side effects as compared to non steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs), but they are still regarded as better anti-inflammatory agents for treating ocular inflammations. The prime concern with conventional formulations such as (ophthalmic solutions, suspensions, ointments) is low drug bioavailability due to precorneal barrier of the eye, tear turnover and rapid drainage of drug via nasolacrimal drainage and drug induced systemic toxicity. To overcome these limitations, various novel formulations of corticosteroids have been explored. These include nanoparticles, solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC), nanomicelles, in-situ gels, iontophoresis, liposomes, nanoemulsions, microemulsions and ocular implants for the effective ophthalmic delivery of the corticosteroids. Topical nanocarriers have also been demonstrated to be promising vectors with potential application in the ophthalmic therapeutics. This review summarizes the clinical findings and patents on various corticosteroids as ocular pharmacotherapeutics.

This article reports the results concerning the design and manufacture of a novel polymeric film for ocular administration of acetazolamide (AZM), and a patent document presented to INPI- National Institute of Industrial/Intelectual Property. The system was designed using mucoadhesive polymers, such as carbomer (CB974P) and sodium carboxymethylcellulose (NaCMC), combined with the poloxamer (POL407) which behaves as a swelling modulator, surfactant and slightly plasticizer. The maximum amount of AZM to be incorporated without loss of homogeneity or precipitation of the drug, was 0.04 mg AZM/mg of the film. The addition of a polymeric coating based on Eudragit RSPO (cationic permeable polymethacrylate polymer) allowed optimizing drug release. The coating in a proportion of 10% (determined as percentage of total weight of the film) seemed to be the most adequate, since 80% of controlled drug release was achieved along 240 minutes. This coating membrane did not affect the mucoadhesive properties of the swellable polymers. Thus, the system obtained, showed good efficiency and the intra ocular pressure (IOP) decreased according to the results derived from in vivo studies performed on normotensive rabbits. Finally, irritation scored studies demonstrated that these systems were not irritant for rabbit´s ocular mucosa.

Self-Emulsifying Drug Delivery System is a unique feasible approach to overcome low oral bioavailability problem which is associated with the hydrophobic drugs due to their unparalleled potential as a drug delivery with the broad range of application. The estimated 40% of active pharmaceuticals are poorly water soluble. Now recently, formulation containing oral SEDDS has received much interest as it solve problems related to oral bioavailability, intra and inter-subject variability and lack of dose proportionality of hydrophobic drugs. Now a days, it is the first way to investigate the development of any kind of innovative dosage forms. Many important in-vitro characteristics such as surfactant concentration, oil/surfactant ratio, emulsion polarity, droplet size and zeta potential play an important role in oral absorption of drug from SEEDS. It can be orally administered in the form of SGC or HGC and also enhances bioavailability of drugs to increase solubility and minimizes the gastric irritation. After administration the drug remains entrapped in the oily droplets (inside the droplet or in the surfactant`s film at the interface) of the emulsion that are formed in the GIT upon self-emulsification process. It is also a bit problematic to say that the drug is being released from SMEDDS, it would be more precise to say that it diffuses out of oily droplets into the GIT media resulting in the formation of an equilibrium between the drug dissolved in oily droplets and the outer dispersed media (e.g. GIT fluids). Many of the application and preparation methods of SEDDS are reported by research articles and patents in different countries. We present an exhaustive and updated account of numerous literature reports and more than 150 patents published on SEDDS in the recent period. This current patent review is useful in knowledge of SEDDS for its preparations and patents in different countries with emphasis on their formulation, characterization and systematic optimization strategies, thus paving the way for accelerated progress into the SEDDS application in pharmaceutical research as well as patents on SEDDS methods.