Efflux Inhibitor Bicalutamide Increases Oral Bioavailability of the Poorly Soluble Efflux Substrate Docetaxel in Co-Amorphous Anti-Cancer Combination Therapy

Adam Bohr, Thais Leite Nascimento, Necati Harmankaya, Johan Juhl Weisser, Yingya Wang, Holger Grohganz, Thomas Rades, Korbinian Löbmann

    6 Citations (Scopus)

    Abstract

    Many anti-cancer drugs are difficult to formulate into an oral dosage form because they are both poorly water-soluble and show poor permeability, the latter often as a result of being an intestinal efflux pump substrate. To obtain a more water-soluble formulation, one can take advantage of the higher solubility of the amorphous form of a given drug, whereas to increase permeability, one can make use of an efflux pump inhibitor. In this study, a combination of these two strategies was investigated using the co-amorphous approach, forming an amorphous mixture of two anti-cancer drugs, docetaxel (DTX) and bicalutamide (BIC). The efflux substrate, DTX, was combined with the efflux inhibitor, BIC, and prepared as a single phase co-amorphous mixture at a 1:1 molar ratio using vibrational ball milling. The co-amorphous formulation was tested in vitro and in vivo for its dissolution kinetics, supersaturation properties and pharmacokinetics in rats. The co-amorphous formulation showed a faster in vitro dissolution of both drugs compared to the control groups, but only DTX showed supersaturation (1.9 fold) compared to its equilibrium solubility. The findings for the co-amorphous formulation were in agreement with the pharmacokinetics data, showing a quicker onset in plasma concentration as well as a higher bioavailability for both DTX (15-fold) and BIC (3-fold) compared to the crystalline drugs alone. Furthermore, the co-amorphous formulation remained physically stable over 1.5 years at 4 C under dry conditions.

    Original languageUndefined/Unknown
    JournalMolecules
    Volume24
    Issue number2
    Pages (from-to)266
    Number of pages1
    ISSN1420-3049
    Publication statusPublished - 11 Jan 2019

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