Amorphous solid dispersion successfully improved oral exposure of ADX71943 in support of toxicology studies

Abstract

ADX71943 is a potent and selective GABA_b receptor positive allosteric modulator (PAM) which exhibits poor aqueous solubility at all physiologically relevant pHs. The aim of this study was to identify an adequate formulation to improve the solubility of ADX71943 to achieve a sufficiently high plasma exposure after oral administration to support the toxicology program. Considering the overall physicochemical properties and the low solubility of ADX71943 in a variety of solvents, solid dispersion, and particle size reduction have been successfully chosen as potential strategies to improve its oral bioavailability. Both technologies have proven useful in improving the in vitro dissolution profile and as a result of the solubility enhancement, higher bioavailability was obtained in vivo. As the solid dispersion gave better bioavailability (30-fold compared with the neat active pharmaceutical ingredient (API)), this formulation was selected for the toxicology study. Changing the crystalline form of ADX71943 into amorphous state by preparing a solid dispersion has greatly improved its oral bioavailability and has allowed achieving the required plasma concentration needed in toxicology studies.

Keywords::

• Formulation development
• solubility improvement
• enabling formulation
• drug delivery system
• bioavailability

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to express sincere thanks to Nawel Khalef and Aziz Bakri (UJF, Grenoble University) for their valuable comments. The authors also wish to acknowledge Roland Bodmeier (Berlin University) for his useful discussion.

Declaration of interest

The authors report no declarations of interest.