For many people, taking medication is not an easy task, and medications that get stuck in the throat and can't go up and down often add to the pain of an already uncomfortable body, especially for children whose physiology makes it more difficult to swallow pharmaceuticals. However, oral medication has become an indispensable mode of drug delivery and now accounts for approximately 90% of the drugs produced for human use.
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So it seems unlikely that you can do without medication, so you'll have to find a way to make the whole medication thing easier. A team of scientists at MIT and Brigham and Women's Hospital have developed an oil-based gel for drug delivery (the results of which have been published in the journal Science Advances).
While studying other types of ingestible drug delivery systems about 10 years ago, the research team began thinking about new ways to make it easier for children to take drugs that are usually provided in pill form.
▲Image from: MIT News
Considering the scenario of use and stability of the drug, the research team decided to focus on oil-based gels. These gels consist of gelling agents, solubilizers and oils and can be used in the food industry to change the texture of oily foods and also to increase the melting point of chocolate and ice cream.
After exploring several vegetable oils including sesame, cottonseed and flaxseed oils, researchers combined these oils with edible gelling agents like beeswax and rice bran wax and found that they could take on different textures depending on the concentration and type of oil and gelling agent. The texture can be like a thick drink like a protein shake, or like yogurt or pudding.
▲Image from: Science Advances
In addition to the different textures that can be made, the research team worked with a team of professionally trained tasters at Sensory Spectrum, a consultancy specialising in consumer sensory experiences, to investigate the taste of the gels, and after much experimentation found that the most appealing gels included those made from oils with a neutral flavour (such as cottonseed oil) or a slightly nutty flavour (such as sesame oil).
The researchers then chose to test the effects of the gel-delivered drugs with three drugs on the World Health Organization's list of essential medicines for children that are insoluble in water: praziquantel, used to treat parasitic infections; benfluralin, used to treat malaria; and azithromycin, used to treat bacterial infections.
▲ Image from: Science Advances
In animal experiments researchers found that for each of these essential drugs, the oil-based gel delivered doses equal to or higher than the amount that could be absorbed from the pills. There is also an antibiotic called moxifloxacin hydrochloride, which is a water-soluble drug but can also be successfully delivered through an oil-based gel.
For better storage and delivery of the drugs, they can be kept in a stable state at 40 degrees Celsius for several weeks, thanks to the researchers' design. This way, they can be used in areas where refrigeration equipment is available. The researchers also designed a dispenser similar to a squeezable yogurt package with dividers that can be used to dispense doses, making it easier to deliver the correct dose to children of different weights.
▲Image from: Science Advances
Of course, there are still some issues to be understood from this study, such as whether the solubility of the drug in the formulation ensures that the drug does not precipitate in the physiological fluid, or whether the solubility of the drug in the formulation is the sole determinant of drug absorption, and the oleogels may also need to be optimized for different drugs.
But from today's results, it appears that this oil-based gel is made with ingredients that are safe, can remain stable at high temperatures for long periods of time, and can deliver drugs at levels comparable to or better than commercial tablets ......
▲Image from: MIT News
Not only has the original research aim of trying to develop drug formulations that can be easily used in children been achieved. It has also overcome the limitations of administering drugs to children in resource-limited settings, the fact that children may not be able to swallow solid dosage forms, the fact that drugs may be exposed to extreme weather conditions, the fact that budgets for paediatric drugs may not be sufficient, and so on.
The research team has now received FDA approval for a Phase I clinical trial of an oil-based gel formulation of azithromycin, and is also planning to begin clinical trials in the coming months. Perhaps soon, taking the drug will no longer be a difficult task.