Novel amorphous solid dispersion based on natural deep eutectic solvent for enhancing delivery of anti-tumor RA-XII by oral administration in rats

Pharmaceutical applications of therapeutic deep eutectic systems (THEDES) in maximising drug delivery

The issue of poor solubility of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) has been a salient area of investigation and novel drug delivery systems are being developed to improve the solubility of drugs, enhance their permeability and thereby their efficacy. Several techniques for solubilization enhancement of poorly soluble drugs are often employed at various stages of pharmaceutical drug product development. One such delivery system is the therapeutic deep eutectic system (THEDES), which showed great potential in the enhancement of solubility and permeability of drugs and ultimately augmenting their bioavailability. THEDES are made by mixing drugs with deep eutectic solvents (DESs) in a definite molar ratio by the hit and trial method. The DESs are a new class of green solvents which are non-toxic, cheap, easy to prepare, biodegradable and have multiple applications in the pharmaceutical industry. The terminologies such as ionic liquids (ILs), DES, THEDES, and therapeutic liquid eutectic systems (THELES) have been very much in use recently, and it is important to highlight the pharmaceutical applications of these unexplored reservoirs in drug solubilization enhancement, drug delivery routes, and in the management of various diseases. This review is aimed at discussing the components, formulation strategies, and routes of administration of THEDES that are used in developing the formulation. Also, the major pharmaceutical applications of THEDES in the treatment of various metabolic and non-metabolic diseases are reviewed.

Predicting the formation of NADES using a transformer-based model

The application of natural deep eutectic solvents (NADES) in the pharmaceutical, agricultural, and food industries represents one of the fastest growing fields of green chemistry, as these mixtures can potentially replace traditional organic solvents. These advances are, however, limited by the development of new NADES which is today, almost exclusively empirically driven and often derivative from known mixtures. To overcome this limitation, we propose the use of a transformer-based machine learning approach. Here, the transformer-based neural network model was first pre-trained to recognize chemical patterns from SMILES representations (unlabeled general chemical data) and then fine-tuned to recognize the patterns in strings that lead to the formation of either stable NADES or simple mixtures of compounds not leading to the formation of stable NADES (binary classification). Because this strategy was adapted from language learning, it allows the use of relatively small datasets and relatively low computational resources. The resulting algorithm is capable of predicting the formation of multiple new stable eutectic mixtures (n = 337) from a general database of natural compounds. More importantly, the system is also able to predict the components and molar ratios needed to render NADES with new molecules (not present in the training database), an aspect that was validated using previously reported NADES as well as by developing multiple novel solvents containing ibuprofen. We believe this strategy has the potential to transform the screening process for NADES as well as the pharmaceutical industry, streamlining the use of bioactive compounds as functional components of liquid formulations, rather than simple solutes.

Advancing Drug Delivery Paradigms: Polyvinyl Pyrolidone (PVP)-Based Amorphous Solid Dispersion for Enhanced Physicochemical Properties and Therapeutic Efficacy

BACKGROUND

The current challenge in drug development lies in addressing the physicochemical issues that lead to low drug effectiveness. Solubility, a crucial physicochemical parameter, greatly influences various biopharmaceutical aspects of a drug, including dissolution rate, absorption, and bioavailability. Amorphous solid dispersion (ASD) has emerged as a widely explored approach to enhance drug solubility.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this review is to discuss and summarize the development of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP)-based amorphous solid dispersion in improving the physicochemical properties of drugs, with a focus on the use of PVP as a novel approach.

METHODOLOGY

This review was conducted by examining relevant journals obtained from databases such as Scopus, PubMed, and Google Scholar, since 2018. The inclusion and exclusion criteria were applied to select suitable articles.

RESULTS

This study demonstrated the versatility and efficacy of PVP in enhancing the solubility and bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs. Diverse preparation methods, including solvent evaporation, melt quenching, electrospinning, coprecipitation, and ball milling are discussed for the production of ASDs with tailored characteristics.

CONCLUSION

PVP-based ASDs could offer significant advantages in the formulation strategies, stability, and performance of poorly soluble drugs to enhance their overall bioavailability. The diverse methodologies and findings presented in this review will pave the way for further advancements in the development of effective and tailored amorphous solid dispersions.

Amorphous solid dispersions: Stability mechanism, design strategy and key production technique of hot melt extrusion

Solid dispersion (SD) system has been used as an effective formulation strategy to increase in vitro and in vivo performances of poorly water-soluble drugs, such as solubility/dissolution, stability and bioavailability. This review provides a comprehensive SD classification and identifies the most popular amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs). Meanwhile, this review further puts forward the systematic design strategy of satisfactory ASDs in terms of drug properties, carrier selection, preparation methods and stabilization mechanisms. In addition, hot melt extrusion (HME) as the continuous manufacturing technique is described including the principle and structure of HME instrument, key process parameters and production application, in order to guide the scale-up of ASDs and develop more ASD products to the market in pharmaceutical industry.

Antimicrobial peptides as potential therapy for gastrointestinal cancers

Since conventional therapy faces limitations in the field of different cancers as well as gastrointestinal cancers, that decrease the survival rate of patients, there is an urgent need to find new effective therapeutic approaches without the adverse effects of the traditional agents. Antimicrobial peptides (AMPs) attract much attention and are well known for their role in innate immunity. These peptides, in addition to their antimicrobial activity, exhibit strong anticancer potential against various types of malignancy. AMPs specifically target tumor cells and have selective toxicity for these cells without affecting normal cells. Here we aim to comprehensively overview the current knowledge in the field of using AMPs as novel therapeutic agents for gastrointestinal cancer.

Amorphous Solid Dispersion as Drug Delivery Vehicles in Cancer

Cancer treatment has improved over the past decades, but a major challenge lies in drug formulation, specifically for oral administration. Most anticancer drugs have poor water solubility which can affect their bioavailability. This causes suboptimal pharmacokinetic performance, resulting in limited efficacy and safety when administered orally. As a result, it is essential to develop a strategy to modify the solubility of anticancer drugs in oral formulations to improve their efficacy and safety. A promising approach that can be implemented is amorphous solid dispersion (ASD) which can enhance the aqueous solubility and bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drugs. The addition of a polymer can cause stability in the formulations and maintain a high supersaturation in bulk medium. Therefore, this study aimed to summarize and elucidate the mechanisms and impact of an amorphous solid dispersion system on cancer therapy. To gather relevant information, a comprehensive search was conducted using keywords such as "anticancer drug" and "amorphous solid dispersion" in the PubMed, Scopus, and Google Scholar databases. The review provides an overview and discussion of the issues related to the ASD system used to improve the bioavailability of anticancer drugs based on molecular pharmaceutics. A thorough understanding of anticancer drugs in this system at a molecular level is imperative for the rational design of the products.

Ecotoxicological study of glucose:choline chloride and sorbitol:choline chloride at different contents of water

The search of new solvents is currently focused on deep eutectic solvents (DES). However, there are not many ecotoxicological studies in different biomodels of DES that allow knowing how these chemicals affect to the environment along the trophic chain. In this manuscript, two DES at different proportion of water have been prepared and characterized from the ecotoxicological point of view. These solvents are glucose:choline chloride (2:5) and sorbitol:choline chloride (3:2) at different contents of water. To carry out the ecotoxicological study, three biomodels have been used: bacteria Aliivibrio fisheri (A. fisheri), crustacean Daphnia magna (D. magna) and algae Raphidocelis subcapitata (R. subcapitata). The obtained results show that the ecotoxicity of these chemicals depends on the biomodel used and the amount of water, being toxicity values lower for chemicals with higher water content. However, it is important to highlight that the ecotoxicity for all chemicals is quite low with effective concentrations, EC₅₀ values above 1000 mg/L in all the studied cases.

Deep Eutectic Systems as Novel Vehicles for Assisting Drug Transdermal Delivery

In recent years, deep eutectic systems (DES) emerged as novel vehicles for facilitating the transdermal delivery of various drugs, including polysaccharides, proteins, insulin, vaccine, nanoparticles, and herb extracts. The objective of this study is to conduct a comprehensive review of the application of DES to transdermal drug delivery, based on previous work and the reported references. Following a brief overview, the roles of DES in TDDS, the modes of action, as well as the structure-activity relationship of DES are discussed. Particularly, the skin permeation of active macromolecules and rigid nanoparticles, which are the defining characteristics of DES, are extensively discussed. The objective is to provide a comprehensive understanding of the current investigation and development of DES-based transdermal delivery systems, as well as a framework for the construction of novel DES-TDDS in the future.

Deep Eutectic Solvents as Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient Delivery Systems in the Treatment of Metabolic Related Diseases

Metabolic related diseases such as cancer, diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis are major challenges for human health and safety worldwide due to their associations with high morbidity and mortality. It is of great significance to develop the effective active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) delivery systems for treatment of metabolic diseases. With their unique merits like easy preparation, high adjustability, low toxicity, low cost, satisfactory stability and biodegradation, deep eutectic solvents (DESs) are unarguably green and sustainable API delivery systems that have been developed to improve drug solubility and treat metabolic related diseases including cancer, diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis. Many reports about DESs as API delivery systems in the therapy of cancer, diabetes mellitus and atherosclerosis exist but no systematic overview of these results is available, which motivated the current work.

Nanomedicine for increasing the oral bioavailability of cancer treatments

Abstract

Oral administration is an appealing route of delivering cancer treatments. However, the gastrointestinal tract is characterized by specific and efficient physical, chemical, and biological barriers that decrease the bioavailability of medications, including chemotherapeutics. In recent decades, the fields of material science and nanomedicine have generated several delivery platforms with high potential for overcoming multiple barriers associated to oral administration. This review describes the properties of several nanodelivery systems that improve the bioavailability of orally administered therapeutics, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages in generating successful anticancer oral nanomedicines.

Graphical Abstract

Experimental and Theoretical Screening for Green Solvents Improving Sulfamethizole Solubility

Solubility enhancement of poorly soluble active pharmaceutical ingredients is of crucial importance for drug development and processing. Extensive experimental screening is limited due to the vast number of potential solvent combinations. Hence, theoretical models can offer valuable hints for guiding experiments aimed at providing solubility data. In this paper, we explore the possibility of applying quantum-chemistry-derived molecular descriptors, adequate for development of an ensemble of neural networks model (ENNM), for solubility computations of sulfamethizole (SMT) in neat and aqueous binary solvent mixtures. The machine learning procedure utilized information encoded in σ-potential profiles computed using the COSMO-RS approach. The resulting nonlinear model is accurate in backcomputing SMT solubility and allowed for extensive screening of green solvents. Since the experimental characteristics of SMT solubility are limited, the data pool was extended by new solubility measurements in water, five neat organic solvents (acetonitrile, N,N-dimethylformamide, dimethyl sulfoxide, 1,4-dioxane, and methanol), and their aqueous binary mixtures at 298.15, 303.15, 308.15, and 313.15 K. Experimentally determined order of decreasing SMT solubility in neat solvents is the following: N,N-dimethylformamide > dimethyl sulfoxide > methanol > acetonitrile > 1,4dioxane >> water, in all studied temperatures. Similar trends are observed for aqueous binary mixtures. Since N,N-dimethylformamide is not considered as a green solvent, the more acceptable replacers were searched for using the developed model. This step led to the conclusion that 4-formylmorpholine is a real alternative to N,N-dimethylformamide, fulfilling all requirements of both high dissolution potential and environmental friendliness.