september 20, 2023

Strong benefits with repurposing and Ectin Research’s formulation development – statement from Director Technical Operations

Kevan Cassidy, was appointed Director Technical Operations for Ectin Research AB at the end of 2022 to lead the company’s development within Clinical Manufacturing and Control (CMC) and formulation. Today he reflects on the benefits with repurposing and the company’s formulation development ahead.

Repurposing of previously tried and tested drugs offers an interesting and exciting way forward in the treatment of malignant diseases. The key benefit alongside clinical efficacy is the known safety profiles of the active ingredients involved.

Having preclinically established a synergy between the active repurposed components of MFA-370 in a number of diseases including bladder, breast, colorectal and prostate cancer Ectin Research has continued to explore preclinically MFA-370’s utility in a number of cancer diseases and this has highlighted antiproliferative effects in cell lines of additional diseases or subtypes that are considered rare and/or currently under treated.

Preclinical exploration is underway to optimise the dose ratio and pharmacokinetics of the active components and this in turn will lead to an optimised marketable formulation.

The current strategy is to develop an oral formulation for treating end-stage oncology patients. This will simplify the dosage regime and add a huge convenience factor to the patient whilst delivering clinical efficacy with a low level known adverse event profile. The pharmacokinetic investigation and an ever-increasing understanding of the mechanism of action will result in further potential optimisation of the final formulation giving the flexibility to develop different dose regimes tailored to individual cancers and/or patients.

Formulation development of repurposed agents has the added benefit of known long term stability and degradation pathways leaving only the direct interaction between active ingredients to be evaluated and avoided with well-established formulation techniques. The continued research into drug delivery systems gives the potential to develop a bespoke product that increases the absolute bioavailability of the component drugs thus reducing dosing levels and adds the flexibility to develop multiple drug ratio combinations in different patient and disease groups.

Kevan Cassidy concludes that Ectin Research’s pharmaceutical development plan will be relatively rapid contributing in turn to a faster regulatory progress whilst adding some additional benefits to the overall data protection plan surrounding future regulatory submissions.

Kevan Cassidy, is Founder and currently also Director at Biokinetix Ltd. a consulting company with a focus on product development, bioequivalence and regulatory activities within the pharmaceutical industry. Prior roles include Product Development Manager Consilient Health Ltd, Clinical Director Perrigo/Rosemont Pharmaceuticals, R&D Director Rosemont Pharmaceuticals and VP Global Head Clinical Mylan Inc. as well as R&D Director Merck-Generics Group Europe.