Lacerta Bio was pleased to take part in a terrific overview of technologies for oral delivery of peptides and proteins:
The oral delivery of biopharmaceuticals is highly desirable because it would provide ease of administration and improve patient compliance. But oral administration remains an elusive goal in biopharmaceutical drug delivery. To date, major obstacles have included problems of bioavailability caused by low absorption, poor cellular permeability, and protein instability and degradation. Several specialty pharmaceutical and other companies are applying various absorption-enhancing technologies to address the problem with some success. Nevertheless, challenges remain, including limitations on the size of the macromolecules that can be delivered.
The article covers a number of significant challenges, such as API pricing and sourcing, formulation challenges, and all the problems surrounding oral bioavailability, such as acid and enzymatic degradation. Irrespective of these challenges, there are a surprising number of oral drug delivery technology companies who are moving forward with their oral delivery programs.
Kudos to author Erik Greb for succinctly assembling an article covering so many issues.