IntelliGel Hydrogel Platform Technology
Many topically administered ophthalmic drugs have the disadvantage of requiring patients to apply multiple doses of medication every day. By burdening patients with the task of remembering how many times they’ve applied their medication, the risk of over-medicating and compromising their health and safety increases. To solve this problem, a slow-release drug delivery technology could be used to reduce the number of doses needed by patients every day and to keep the medication on the front of the eye longer to reduce the amount of medication required. Redwood Pharma has such a solution as it has in-licensed IntelliGel from Broda Technologies, a slow-release drug delivery platform for ophthalmic uses. The poloxamer thermogel technology can be used to slow down the rate of delivery of medications for a wide range of ophthalmic therapies.
Capabilities
IntelliGel is a patented supramolecular smart drug delivery system with an ability to dissolve water-insoluble and sparingly soluble drugs, or disperse, suspend and stabilise otherwise insoluble drugs. It is an odor-free, clear and transparent hydrogel with low solid content, and forms an invisible patch when applied to a surface.
The technology is ideal for development of a topical formulation for administration to the front of the eye. The system can control the release of active pharmaceutical ingredients while increasing bioavailability by keeping medication on the surface of the eye over an extended period of time. In this way, the technology can reduce the number of instillations per day and consequently minimize doses and avoid unwanted side effect.
The importance of supramolecular chemistry was established by the 1987 Nobel Prize for Chemistry which was awarded to Donald J. Cram, Jean-Marie Lehn, and Charles J. Pedersen in recognition for their work in this area.
Hydrogel Delays Release
In a head to head comparison, an experiment demonstrated the rates of diffusion of a small molecule active pharmaceutical ingredient formulated in IntelliGel and PBS solution. The following graph shows that the hydrogel slows the rate of diffusion over more than 12 hours. It allows for the development of new therapies based on existing or new molecules with extended release:
