Enzyme-Triggered Intestine-Specific Targeting Adhesive Platform For Universal Oral Drug Delivery.

Patient adherence to chronic therapies can be suboptimal, leading to poor therapeutic outcomes. Dosage forms that enable reduction in dosing frequency stand to improve patient adherence. Variation in gastrointestinal transit time, inter-individual differences in gastrointestinal physiology and differences in physicochemical properties of drugs represent challenges to the development of such systems. To this end, we have developed a small intestine-targeted drug delivery system, where prolonged gastrointestinal retention and sustained release are achieved through tissue adhesion of drug pills mediated by an essential intestinal enzyme catalase. Here we demonstrate proof-of-concept pharmacokinetics in the swine model for two drugs, hydrophilic amoxicillin and hydrophobic levodopa. We anticipate that this system could be applicable for many drugs with a diverse of physicochemical characteristics. This article is protected by copyright. All rights reserved.