This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 955756.

New publication on polymer-embedded deep eutectic solvents (PEDES) as a novel bio-enabling formulation approach

Shaida Panbachi, ESR 5, has published a paper in the InPharma special issue in the European Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences. The paper “Polymer-embedded deep eutectic solvents (PEDES) as a novel bio-enabling formulation approach” presents a new way of formulating poorly soluble drugs into enabling formulations using the deep eutectic solvents (DES).

There is a growing interest in the DES as pharmaceutical delivery systems for poorly water-soluble compounds. This is because these solvents generally show high solvation capacities. However, previous studies have shown that the high solubilization tends to result in precipitation in the release medium. In the presented paper, a high solubilization of indomethacin as the model drug was observed (175.6 mg/mL), and the hurdle of precipitation was overcome by embedding the DES with a polymer acting as a precipitation inhibitor. This resulted in a maximum supersaturation factor of 9.8 in the release medium (phosphate buffer pH 6.5), whereby the release kinetics displayed a suitable “parachute effect”. The formulation was further characterized to include a molecular dynamics simulation.

The work shows that the PEDES is a viable novel formulation approach setting grounds for further research to aimed to assess the full potential of this novel type of supersaturating drug delivery system.