Many drugs that are currently on the market are only effective in treating diseases when given intravenously (IV). For example, amphotericin B is an antifungal drug that must be administered via IV in order to be effective . IV administration presents several challenges to care, such as risk of infection, patient discomfort from injections, and higher cost of care than oral administration. Although several technologies have been used to attempt to convert IV drugs to oral they have not been successful due to the difficulty in achieving bioavailability (i.e., the concentration of drug that reaches the blood stream) with oral formulation.
In addition to issues with intravenous administration, drug toxicity remains a challenge. Drugs with high toxicity cause numerous painful side effects in patients such as, nephrotoxicity (kidney toxicity), headaches, vomiting and severe chest pains, among others; however, doctors continue to use these drugs because they are effective in treating diseases.
Aquarius’ business is founded on a revolutionary drug delivery platform called “cochleates.” When applied to existing drugs, cochleates have demonstrated the ability to address both of the issues highlighted above by: 1) creating oral drug alternatives with non-inferior efficacy for drugs that are currently only available via IV and 2) reducing the toxicity of drugs.
Aquarius partners with biotech and pharmaceutical companies to develop new drugs using cochleates. For partnership inquiries, please contact us.