we
we
Develop Boosted
Oral Taxanes
to Fight Tumors
Develop Boosted
Oral Taxanes
to Fight Tumors
improve the
delivery,
bioavalability
and tolerability
of taxanes.
improve the
delivery,
bioavalability
and tolerability
of taxanes.
Modra’s proprietary boosted taxane approach improves the delivery, bioavailability and tolerability of taxanes.
Taxane therapies, long used as intravenously administered infusions, are very challenging drugs to deliver orally. The taxane molecules themselves have properties (including very low water solubility) which make them difficult to formulate as a tablet. In addition, due to the fact that taxanes are substrates for CYP3A4 (which leads to the rapid metabolization and effective “deactivation” of drugs) and/or P-gp (which pumps drugs out of cells), obtaining sufficient bioavailability of taxane molecules – even if you can formulate them in tablet form – is a further significant hurdle.
Our approach to overcome these challenges comprises 2 key components
Optimized tablet formulation
An optimized tablet formulation that is not only efficient in terms of size and number of tablets that have to be taken by the patient, but also eliminates the toxic excipients typically found in IV formulations.
Booster to enhance therapy levels
The taxane tablet is co-administered with a boosting agent, ritonavir, to boost systemic and intratumoral levels of docetaxel exposure in patients. Ritonavir has been used as a booster in anti-viral settings but this is the first application in oncology.
Utilizing this approach, we overcome not only the major limitations associated with taxane therapy, but also can circumvent the pharmacological challenges these drugs present in terms of creating effective oral therapies. We have secured broad global patent coverage for all parts of our technology.