Human intestinal permeability is a key determinant of the oral fraction absorbed () of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). This study evaluated the ability of an in-house canine Mdr1 (cMdr1) knockout (KO) Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cell line to correlate apparent permeability () with human small intestinal permeability (). values of 16 reference compounds with high, medium, or low permeabilities were measured in the in-house cMdr1 KO MDCK protocol under pH gradient (6.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPoor aqueous solubility and slow dissolution rate of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are often encountered challenges during oral drug development, leading to variable and insufficient bioavailability. To overcome these challenges, a so-called "enabling" formulation strategy is often pursued. Among these, amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) are established as an effective means of improving drug absorption.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis study leverages physiologically based biopharmaceutics modeling (PBBM) to predict the clinical performance of two itraconazole (ITRA) amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs), Sempera® and Tolsura®, under fasted and fed state conditions, exploring the potential of PBBM in predicting formulation-specific food interactions. The ITRA formulations were subjected to extensive in vitro biopharmaceutical testing, including solubility studies and dissolution tests under fasted and fed state conditions, revealing significant differences in dissolution behaviors between Sempera® and Tolsura®. The impact of food and hypochlorhydria on drug absorption was evaluated using a stepwise mechanistic deconvolution-reconvolution PBBM approach, integrating fundamental parameters based on the in vitro data into the final model.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLiquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) plays a pivotal role in processes ranging from cellular structure reorganization to the formation of crystalline structures in materials science. In the pharmaceutical field, it has been demonstrated to impact drug crystallization and delivery. To date, characterization of LLPS has been limited to nonspatially resolved or nonchemically resolved analyses.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFJ Pharm Sci
February 2025
Rat pharmacokinetic studies are commonly utilized in early discovery to support absorption, distribution, metabolism, and excretion optimization of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). The aim of this work was to compare exposures from fit-for-purpose oral suspension and solution formulations in rats to guidance provided by the refined Developability Classification System (rDCS) with respect to identifying potential limits to oral absorption, formulation strategy selection, and to optimize oral bioavailability (BA). This investigation utilized six diverse APIs covering a large range of biorelevant solubility, metabolic stability, and oral BA in rats.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAccording to the ICH M9 Guideline, the triazole antifungal voriconazole is a Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS) class II drug, being highly soluble at the highest dose strength but not at the highest single dose. Although the ICH M9 allows for consideration of BCS-based biowaivers in such cases, voriconazole does not meet the additional requirement of dose proportional pharmacokinetics (PK) over the therapeutic dose range. By contrast, if the classification were based on the FDA solubility criteria that were in place prior to ICH M9 (based on the highest dose strength), voriconazole would belong to BCS class I and thus qualify for the BCS-based biowaiver.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFLemborexant is a dual orexin receptor antagonist assigned to class II of the Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS). Thus, the ICH M9 Guideline excludes immediate-release (IR) solid oral dosage forms containing lemborexant from BCS-based biowaivers, irrespective of their in vitro dissolution behavior. By contrast, classification of lemborexant according to the refined Developability Classification System (rDCS) falls into class I, indicating few biopharmaceutics risks.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe refined Developability Classification System (rDCS) provides a comprehensive animal-free approach for assessing biopharmaceutical risks associated with developing oral formulations. This work demonstrates practical application of a recently advanced rDCS framework guiding formulation design for six diverse active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and compares rDCS classifications with those of the Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS). While the BCS assigns five of the APIs to class II/IV, indicating potentially unfavorable biopharmaceutical attributes, the rDCS provides a more nuanced risk assessment.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBiorelevant dissolution and its concept have been widely accepted and further developed to meaningfully predict the bioperformance of oral drug products. Biorelevant methodologies have been applied to design and optimize oral formulations, to facilitate formulation bridging, and to predict the outcome of bioperformance by coupling the results with modeling. Yet, those methodologies have often been independently customized to align with specific aspects of the oral drug products being developed.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThis Article shares the proceedings from the August 29th, 2023 (day 1) workshop "Physiologically Based Biopharmaceutics Modeling (PBBM) Best Practices for Drug Product Quality: Regulatory and Industry Perspectives". The focus of the day was on model parametrization; regulatory authorities from Canada, the USA, Sweden, Belgium, and Norway presented their views on PBBM case studies submitted by industry members of the IQ consortium. The presentations shared key questions raised by regulators during the mock exercise, regarding the PBBM input parameters and their justification.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSupersaturation and precipitation within the gastrointestinal tract can influence oral absorption of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). Supersaturation of weakly basic APIs upon transfer from the stomach into the small intestine may enhance their absorption, while salt forms of poorly soluble weak acids may generate supersaturated solutions in both stomach and intestine. Likewise, APIs with solubility-limited absorption may be developed as enabling formulations intended to produce supersaturated solutions of the API in the gut.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn this monograph, the potential use of methods based on the Biopharmaceutics Classification System (BCS) framework to evaluate the bioequivalence of solid immediate-release (IR) oral dosage forms containing fexofenadine hydrochloride as a substitute for a pharmacokinetic study in human volunteers is investigated. We assessed the solubility, permeability, dissolution, pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, therapeutic index, bioavailability, drug-excipient interaction, and other properties using BCS recommendations from the ICH, FDA and EMA. The findings unequivocally support fexofenadine's classification to BCS Class IV as it is neither highly soluble nor highly permeable.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNefecon, a targeted-release capsule formulation of budesonide approved for the reduction of proteinuria in adults with primary immunoglobulin A nephropathy, targets overproduction of galactose-deficient immunoglobulin A type 1 in the Peyer's patches at the gut mucosal level. To investigate whether the commercial formulation of Nefecon capsules reliably releases budesonide to the distal ileum, a human study was conducted with test capsules reproducing the delayed-release function of Nefecon capsules. Caffeine was included in the test capsules as a marker for capsule opening in the gut since it appears rapidly in saliva after release from orally administered dosage forms.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPurpose: The goal was to assess, for lipophilic drugs, the impact of logP on human volume of distribution at steady-state (VD) predictions, including intermediate fut and Kp values, from six methods: Oie-Tozer, Rodgers-Rowland (tissue-specific Kp and only muscle Kp), GastroPlus, Korzekwa-Nagar, and TCM-New.
Method: A sensitivity analysis with focus on logP was conducted by keeping pKa and fup constant for each of four drugs, while varying logP. VD was also calculated for the specific literature logP values.
The respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of acute lower respiratory tract infections associated with numerous hospitalizations. Recently, intramuscular (i.m.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Pharmaceutical salts of poorly soluble drugs typically dissolve faster than their corresponding free acid or base, resulting in supersaturation under some circumstances. The key questions relevant to drug bioavailability "does the salt invoke the supersaturated state?" and, if so, "does precipitation occur?" remain. To answer these questions, different types of dissolution equipment are often used at different stages of the development process.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAAPS J
November 2023
The in-person workshop "Drug Dissolution in Oral Drug Absorption" was held on May 23-24, 2023, in Baltimore, MD, USA. The workshop was organized into lectures and breakout sessions. Three common topics that were re-visited by various lecturers were amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs), dissolution/permeation interplay, and in vitro methods to predict in vivo biopharmaceutics performance and risk.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceutics
September 2023
Drug permeation across the intestinal epithelium is a prerequisite for successful oral drug delivery. The increased interest in oral administration of peptides, as well as poorly soluble and poorly permeable compounds such as drugs for targeted protein degradation, have made permeability a key parameter in oral drug product development. This review describes the various in vitro, in silico and in vivo methodologies that are applied to determine drug permeability in the human gastrointestinal tract and identifies how they are applied in the different stages of drug development.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRespiratory syncytial virus (RSV) is a leading cause of acute lower respiratory tract infections in the elderly and in children, associated with pediatric hospitalizations. Recently, first vaccines have been approved for people over 60 years of age applied by intramuscular injection. However, a vaccination route via mucosal application holds great potential in the protection against respiratory pathogens like RSV.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFReliable, experimentally determined partition coefficient P (logP) for most drugs are often unavailable in the literature. Many values are from in silico predictions and may not accurately reflect drug lipophilicity. In this study, a robust, viable, and resource sparing method to measure logP was developed using reverse phase high performance liquid chromatography (RP-HPLC).
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