A drug-delivery gel could help the drug go down the throat

Swallowing pills or pills can be difficult for most children, and even some adul.

Made from vegetable oils like sesame oil, the gel can be made into a variety of textures, from thickened beverages to yogurt-like substanc.

"This platform will change our ability to do what we can do for kids and also for adults who are having difficulty with medicati.

Traverso and his colleagues showed in animal experiments that they could use the gel to deliver several drugs for infectious diseases in the same doses as a pill or tabl.

Former MIT postdoc Ameya Kirtane, now a lecturer at Brigham and Women's Hospital; MIT postdoc Christina Karavasili; and former technical associate Aniket Wahane are lead authors of the study, which appears today in Science Advances in the magazi.

easy to swallow

Nearly 10 years ago, while working on other types of absorbable drug delivery systems, research teams started thinking about new ways to make it easier for children to take drugs that are usually given in tablet fo.

For those medicines that are only available in tablet form, health care providers may try dissolving them in water for children to drink, but this also requires a clean water supply, and if the tablets are intended for adults, the dose may be It's hard to be su.

To address these issues, the researchers set out to develop a new drug delivery system that is inexpensive, palatable, stable at extreme temperatures, and compatible with many different dru.

Because they wanted their formulation to work with drugs that aren't soluble in water, the researchers decided to focus on oil-based ge.

"This approach allows us to deliver hydrophobic drugs that are not available through water-based systems," Kirtane sa.

The researchers explored several types of vegetable oils, including sesame oil, cottonseed oil, and flaxseed o.

To find the tastiest gel, the researchers teamed up with Sensory Spectrum, a consulting firm specializing in consumer sensory experienc.

provide many medicines

The researchers selected three water-insoluble drugs from the World Health Organization's List of Essential Medicines for Children to test their gel: praziquantel, used to treat parasitic infections; lumefantrine, used to treat malaria; and azithromycin, Used to treat bacterial infectio.

"Based on this list, infectious diseases are really something a country needs to protect its children," Kirtane sa.

In animal experiments, the researchers found that for each of these drugs, the oleogel was able to deliver doses equal to or higher than the absorbable doses of the pil.

To make the formulations usable in areas without refrigeration, the researchers engineered them to be stable at 40 degrees Celsius (104 degrees Fahrenheit) for several weeks and even 60 degrees Celsius (140 degrees Fahrenheit) for a we.

The researchers have already received FDA approval to conduct a Phase 1 clinical trial of their azithromycin gel formulation, which they hope to begin in the next few months at the Brigham and Women's Hospital Clinical Research Cent.

To store and deliver the drug, the researchers also designed a dispenser that resembles a squeezable yogurt package, with compartments that can be used to separate dos.

This makes it easier to give each child the correct dose based on their weig.