Lexaria has commissioned studies to evaluate DehydraTECH’s ability to enhance the delivery and efficacy of four additional antiviral drugs, including remdesivir
Lexaria Bioscience Corp () () announced Tuesday that following promising antiviral study results earlier this month, the company has initiated the next phase of research on its DehydraTECH drug delivery platform
The previous study demonstrated that DehydraTECH significantly improved drug delivery in animals of two classes of antiviral therapies, a protease inhibitor and a reverse transcriptase inhibitor, both of which are under investigation for the treatment of the coronavirus.
Now, Lexaria has commissioned studies to evaluate DehydraTECH’s ability to enhance the delivery and efficacy of four additional antiviral drugs, including remdesivir, a nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor (NtRTI) approved by the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in October for the treatment of coronavirus in cases of hospitalization.
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The studies will administer DehydraTECH-enabled formulations to male rats to quantify and compare total drug delivery into the rodent bloodstream against control formulations. These studies will be conducted by a third-party pharmacokinetic testing laboratory in Pennsylvania, the company said.
An additional study will be undertaken using the services of a separate third-party laboratory to evaluate the relative antiviral activity of certain formulations. Lexaria plans to observe the performance of various formulations in an established cell culture model of SARS-CoV-2 infected cells in an effort to kill the virus.
This will be the first time one of Lexaria's third-party contracted laboratories will work with live SARS-CoV-2 virus in conjunction with DehydraTECH. If the outcome is positive, the company said it expects to proceed to larger in vivo efficacy testing in animals to determine if DehydraTECH-enabled formulation offers performance enhancements when given orally.
"With these additional antiviral drug studies, we are aggressively expanding and implementing the first of our strategic initiatives for 2021," CEO Chris Bunka said in a statement. "After our recent initial success in animals demonstrating DehydraTECH's ability to enhance drug delivery of two other antiviral drugs, we are excited to work with remdesivir, one of the world's leading drugs currently in use for treatment of COVID-19, to learn whether DehydraTECH may also enhance drug delivery characteristics of NtRTI's."
Lexaria also said it expects to announce its 2021 research and development plans within the next 90 days. If things stay to plan, next year will bring the largest applied R&D program in the company's history.
Contact Andrew Kessel at [email protected]
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