{"id":35394,"date":"2018-12-10T16:43:36","date_gmt":"2018-12-10T21:43:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sciencebusiness.technewslit.com\/?p=35394"},"modified":"2018-12-11T12:06:34","modified_gmt":"2018-12-11T17:06:34","slug":"patent-set-for-long-term-drug-capsules","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/technewslit.com\/sciencebusiness\/?p=35394","title":{"rendered":"Patent Set for Long-Term Drug Capsules"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Star-shaped<\/a>
Researcher Giovanni Traverso holds the star-shaped drug delivery device (Mass. Institute of Technology)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

10 Dec. 2018. Techniques for delivering drugs in capsule form that last a week or longer in the patient are expected to receive a patent soon from U.S. authorities. Lyndra Therapeutics Inc.<\/a> in Watertown, Massachusetts that owns the rights to the technology first developed at Massachusetts Institute of Technology, says it received a notice of allowance — a document indicating intent to issue a patent — from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.<\/p>\n

Lyndra Therapeutics develops a process for delivering drugs as capsules that dispense their contents over one week or more. Taking medications once a week or less is expected to make it easier for many people to stick to their drug regimens. Medication adherence is a continuing problem, particularly for older individuals with chronic diseases, who must take multiple medications at different times during the day. A study\u00a0published in 2011<\/a>\u00a0found about half of chronic disease patients do not take their medications as prescribed, which the authors attribute to a factors including lack of health literacy by patients, ineffective communication by clinicians, and care given by multiple health care providers.<\/p>\n

The company’s technology is based on research in the MIT lab of Robert Langer<\/a>, a biotechnology and materials science professor, and gastroenterologist and biomedical engineer Giovanni Traverso<\/a> at Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital, affiliated with Harvard Medical School. They devised a six-armed snowflake or star made from polycaprolactone<\/a>, or PCL, a biodegradable polymer. The delivered drug is loaded on each PCL arm, held together with with a softer, rubber-like plastic. That soft middle section makes it possible to fold the arms into an ingestible capsule, with the softer plastic also degrading faster than the more rigid PCL.<\/p>\n

After the capsule is swallowed, stomach acid breaks down the outer capsule, releasing and unfolding the drug-laden star. Tests with pigs<\/a> that have digestive systems similar to humans, using a malaria drug, shows the PCL star can last as long as 2 weeks in the stomach, but also passing through the animals without affecting normal digestive processes. A more complex drug delivery task loaded 3 different antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV infections on the star that needed to release their drugs at different times. As reported by Science & Enterprise<\/a> in January 2018, the polymer stars delivered the 3 drugs in pigs at different rates over a 7-day period, also with the polymer stars passing through the pigs without a problem.<\/p>\n

Lyndra Therapeutics, a 3 year-old enterprise<\/a>, is developing once-a-week oral deliveries<\/a> for drugs to treat Alzheimer’s disease and psychiatric disorders, both in early-stage clinical trials. Weekly oral-drug deliveries are in earlier stages for opioid use disorder, cardiovascular and metabolic diseases, HIV infections, and for therapies that invoke the immune system. The company is also developing a biweekly delivery mechanism for malaria in early-stage trials and a once-a-month oral contraceptive.<\/p>\n

The patent application<\/a> was filed by MIT and Brigham and Women\u2019s Hospital, which covers not only delivery of therapies, but also for diagnostics. A notice of allowance<\/a> is considered the last step before granting a patent, indicating the USPTO fully reviewed the application and is ready for final issuance. Lyndra is the exclusive licensee of the technology.<\/p>\n

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