Recent evaluation of HIV patient groups have shown a willingness to switch to nanomedicine alternatives if benefits can be shown. Research efforts by the Liverpool team have focused on the development of new oral therapies, using Solid Drug Nanoparticle (SDN) technology which can improve drug absorption into the body, reducing both the dose and the cost per dose and enabling existing healthcare budgets to treat more patients.


Poorly available

Presently, no clinically available oral nanotherapies exist for HIV populations and conventional paediatric HIV medicines are poorly available. The programme examined one current paediatric formulation that utilizes high ethanol concentrations to solubilize lopinavir, a poorly soluble antiretroviral.

Through the use of a rapid small-scale nanomedicine screening approach developed at Liverpool, the researchers were able to generate a novel water dispersible nanotherapy, hence removing the need to use alcohol in the paediatric medicine.

The research, funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council is in ongoing human trials, and the preclinical development has been published in Nature Communications ("Accelerated oral nanomedicine discovery from miniaturized screening to clinical production exemplified by paediatric HIV nanotherapies").


Wide applicability

Professor Owen said "The fruits of our interdisciplinary research are beginning to be realised. Our approach has the potential to overcome challenges with current antiretroviral therapy, which include administration of high doses needed to achieve efficacious concentrations in the body, and the urgent need for better formulations for children living with HIV."

Professor Rannard added "The wide applicability of our strategy has implications for multiple therapy development programmes and we are actively engaged in the creation of nanomedicine options to impact a range of clinical needs."

University of Liverpool. Posted: Oct 21, 2016.