- Drug delivery platform developer Lexaria Bioscience has been testing its patented technology in conjunction with antivirals Remdesivir and Ebastine during the past year to determine the potential for enhancing their effectiveness against the COVID-19 virus
- Early-stage testing has determined Lexaria’s technology — DehydraTECH — did not inhibit Remdesivir and Ebastine in their use against the virus
- DehydraTECH is a technology that helps drugs gain better bioavailability through effective introduction into patients’ bloodstreams
- The DehydraTECH platform has also shown great potential in enhancing hypertension medication and additional trials are ongoing
Pharmaceutical use and bioavailability innovator Lexaria Bioscience (NASDAQ: LEXX) (CSE: LXX) recently reported it has achieved a major milestone in efficacy testing in combination with antiviral drugs that comprise a significant weapon in the war against COVID-19 infections, enhancing Lexaria’s potential for eventually partnering with a major pharmaceutical company as a drug delivery platform.
Lexaria’s patented DehydraTECH technology strives to make swallowed pharmaceuticals more potent in their bloodstream bioavailability through creation of a select formulation that rivals the efficacy some substance users achieve only through smoking or inhaling products into the lungs — a potentially dangerous means of activating a drug’s potential.
The company has reported trial successes working with blood pressure drugs and antivirals. Lexaria’s latest accomplishment involves testing DehydraTECH for the delivery of Remdesivir and Ebastine — antivirals that have gained renown in their use to reduce the harm wrought by COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 during the past year’s global pandemic.
In an in vitro IC50 study that measures the amount of a drug necessary to inhibit a biological process (https://ibn.fm/HgxOf) — specifically the amount of Remdesivir and Ebastine necessary to deliver a potent response against the COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 virus — researchers found that DehydraTECH use as a delivery platform “did not negate the known efficacy of those compounds” (https://ibn.fm/VCm4E).
While the testing is simply an early-stage analysis of whether DehydraTECH reduces the effectiveness of these drug treatments, Lexaria regards the successful results as an indicator that it is on the right track in seeking entry to the antiviral market, which is expected to achieve sales revenues of $44 billion within the next five years, according to analysts at by Global Market Insights Inc. (https://ibn.fm/5fpvp).
Even before the advent of the COVID virus pandemic, health conditions such as influenza, HIV, respiratory syncytial virus (“RSV”), allergic rhinitis and other coronaviruses were expected to drive the market higher with a CAGR of 3.2 percent (https://ibn.fm/8TyOU) and Lexaria isn’t limiting its antiviral scope to studies involving COVID-19 drugs.
“We needed to know if DehydraTECH(TM) interferes in any way with the effects these drugs have on the virus,” Lexaria Bioscience CEO Chris Bunka stated. “It doesn’t give us any direct score on ‘how well’ it works or does not, just a yes-no. The next step is to move on to in vivo efficacy testing in animals and then eventually humans.”
However, testing has revealed that circulating drug levels of Remdesivir and Ebastine, enabled by DehydraTECH, were measured at two or three times their concentration levels in the non-DehydraTECH controls, providing Lexaria with the best results the company has “ever generated demonstrating our technology’s ability to more effectively deliver antiviral drugs when taken orally,” Bunka stated.
When used with cannabidiol (“CBD”) in testing for hypertension strategies, the DehydraTECH-enhanced substance delivered a 5 percent drop in blood pressure after a single 90mg dose and a 300 percent greater concentration of CBD in under 30 minutes in 2018. A Phase I trial of the drug — HYPER-H21-1 — was completed ahead of schedule in June (https://ibn.fm/iLnR3) and that launch of Phase II trials was subsequently announced to determine time series blood pressure and heart rate effect.
Lexaria has licensed its technology for use by a number of companies and has plans to also study DehydraTECH’s performance with non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (“NSAIDs”), PDE5 inhibitors, human hormones, and vitamins. The company reported on its progress to investors at the Life Sciences Investor Forum conference series on June 24.
For more information, visit the company’s website at www.LexariaBioscience.com.
NOTE TO INVESTORS: The latest news and updates relating to LEXX are available in the company’s newsroom at https://ibn.fm/LEXX
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