The completion of a £14m ($21m) investment round has led the Oxford, UK based pharmaceutical company to revamp its business plan and it now intends to scale-up the manufacture of its SDI drug delivery system.
Speaking to in-Pharmatechnologist.com, Charles Potter, Chief Business Officer at Glide, estimated that following this fundraising the device would be commercially available in the next two to three years.
“At present,” he said, “the device is in a novel dosage form but we are working with a leading equipment manufacturer in order to develop it and up capacity.”
Solid Dose Injector & Alternative Injectable Devices
The SDI device is a needle-free delivery system for the administration of drugs and this round of funding – the fifth, taking total funds up to approximately £25m – comes as interest in alternatives to traditional syringes drives innovation.
SHL are the latest to inject money in its range of auto injectors, though Biogen, Merck Serano and Eli Lilly have all been expanding their alternative injectable businesses.
However, Potter explained that Glide’s SDI is “fundamentally different” to the other offerings on the market. The needle-free technology combines a disposable drug cassette and a reusable applicator which delivers a solid dose formulation under the skin using a spring-powered actuator.
“The drug is in effect the needle,” Potter said, adding the fact that the drug is delivered in solid-form means it is potentially more stable and can avoid problems resulting from cold-chain storage.
Traditional formulations - used throughout the injectables market - are stored as solids to increase stability and then turned back to liquids before administration, which can be both costly and can potentially lead to issues with the drug itself.
Prospective Partners & Drug Development
Glide’s SDI won an award at the 2007 Medical Futures Innovation Awards and the following year received some interest from a major pharmaceutical company who is currently still a partner but could not be named by Glide.
Potter told us that Glide is on the lookout for other partners who want to use the SDI technology but are also using the injector in a range of generic drugs being manufactured in-house.
One programme under development is the administration of the Parathyroid hormone (PTH) used in the treatment of osteoporosis. The programme has previously received £2.3m of funding from the UK government-backed Biomedical Catalyst scheme, managed jointly by the Medical Research Council and the Technology Strategy Board, and was announced by British Prime Minister David Cameron in 2011.