Novel Self-Assembled Ibrutinib-Phospholipid Complex for Potently Peroral Delivery of Poorly Soluble Drugs with pH-Dependent Solubility

As an irreversible small-molecule kinase inhibitor, ibrutinib (IBR) exhibits excellent tumor suppression in various tumor cells. However, IBR is insoluble at neutral pH and can dissolve only at low pH: thus, commercial IBR products present poor bioavailability and weakened in vivo antitumor activity. Therefore, we aimed to develop a stable IBR-phospholipid complex (IBR-PC) using egg phosphatidylglycerol (EPG) as excipients to improve the bioavailability of IBR and further enhance its antitumor effects. IBR-PC was characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FT-IR), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), X-ray powder diffraction (XPRD), and molecular docking and simulation test, which all explained the interactions of two components. Solubility tests demonstrate that the novel formulation can maintain excellent solubility (above 5 mg/mL) at various pH levels. Storage stability tests show that no change in particle size or content of IBR-PC was observed during the experimental period. In vivo pharmacokinetic results demonstrated that the relative bioavailability of IBR-PC was a 9.14-fold improvement relative to that of IBR suspension (IBR-susp). Furthermore, IBR-PC was associated with enhanced cytotoxic activity in vitro and superior tumor growth suppression in vivo compared to that resulting from the free IBR. Thus, the proposed IBR-PC system is a promising drug delivery system that enhances the oral bioavailability of IBR, resulting in its improved in vivo antitumor effect.

Advances in nanomedicines for malaria treatment

Malaria is an infectious disease that mainly affects children and pregnant women from tropical countries. The mortality rate of people infected with malaria per year is enormous and became a public health concern. The main factor that has contributed to the success of malaria proliferation is the increased number of drug resistant parasites. To counteract this trend, research has been done in nanotechnology and nanomedicine, for the development of new biocompatible systems capable of incorporating drugs, lowering the resistance progress, contributing for diagnosis, control and treatment of malaria by target delivery. In this review, we discussed the main problems associated with the spread of malaria and the most recent developments in nanomedicine for anti-malarial drug delivery.