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Lexaria Drug Delivery Platform Enables up to Three-Fold Increase in Oral Delivery of Antiviral Drugs
DehydraTECH™ improves delivery into bloodstream of orally administered remdesivir and ebastine in study VIRAL-A20-2KELOWNA, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 15, 2021 /
About this update from Lexaria Bioscience Corp.
[{"type":"text","content":"DehydraTECH™ improves delivery into bloodstream of orally administered remdesivir and ebastine in study VIRAL-A20-2KELOWNA, BC / ACCESSWIRE / June 15, 2021 / Lexaria Bioscience Corp. (NASDAQ:LEXX) (NASDAQ:LEXXW) (CSE:LXX) (the \"Company\" or \"Lexaria\"), a global innovator in drug delivery platforms, is pleased to announce positive results from its tolerability and pharmacokinetic (\"PK\") animal study VIRAL-A20-2, evaluating DehydraTECH-enabled remdesivir and ebastine.These findings build upon Lexaria's recent announcement that remdesivir and ebastine processed with DehydraTECH were effective at inhibiting the COVID-19 SARS-CoV-2 virus using an in vitro screening assay in infected cells in its study VIRAL-C21-3.\"These are the best results Lexaria has ever generated demonstrating our technology's ability to more effectively deliver antiviral drugs when taken orally,\" said Chris Bunka, CEO of Lexaria. \"We are starting to see circulating drug levels in the bloodstream that are twice or even three-times higher with DehydraTECH than without, which could greatly enhance opportunities to treat viral infections via oral drug delivery.\"DrugDrug ClassCmax** % Improvement(ng/mL)Control(ng/mL)AUClast*** % Improvement(hr∙ng/mL)Control(hr∙ng/mL)Remdesivir*(GS-441524)Nucleotide Reverse Transcriptase Inhibitor54.5 ± 69.4110%(p=0.11)26.4 ± 8.9218.3 ± 244.582%(p=0.12)119.7 ± 35.5EbastineMPro Inhibitor (a.k.a. 3CL Protease Inhibitor)9.1 ± 5.733%(p=0.17)6.8 ± 4.429.9 ±28.0204%(p=0.027)9.8 ±9.7The gains in delivery for remdesivir and ebastine exceed those that Lexaria previously reported on December 1, 2020 for darunavir (35% gain) and efavirenz (42% gain), two other antiviral drugs investigated by Lexaria representative of two classes of antiviral therapies (a protease inhibitor and a reverse transcriptase inhibitor) under investigation against SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 and already in use against HIV/AIDS.Remdesivir is a well-known nucleotide reverse transcriptase inhibitor, available under the trade name Veklury® from Gilead Sciences Inc., that interferes with the SARS-CoV-2 viral replication life cycle and has received emergency use authorization in many regions of the world for treatment of COVID-19. Ebastine is an antihistamine drug that has potent effects in inhibiting the SARS-CoV-2 main protease (Mpro, also called the 3CL protease) blocking ...