Ferring licenses Enteris Peptelligence to turn injectable into oral drug
Enteris BioPharma, Inc. in New Jersey, US, will also provide clinical trial finished product in exchange for milestone payments and royalties based on net sales.
Switzerland-based Ferring Pharmaceutcials Group is developing therapies for a range of indications, including reproductive health, Crohn’s disease and Prader-Willi Syndrome.
Enteris’ proprietary Peptelligence platform has also been licensed out to two other biopharmas in the past 7 days to engineer peptide-based formulations into more orally bioavailable equivalents.
The specific product regarding this license deal, however, was not disclosed.
Joel Tune, CEO of Enteris, said “our Peptelligence platform [enhances] the market potential of peptide-based therapeutics by enabling the oral delivery of medications that must otherwise be administered by injection.”
Oral bioavailability
There are significant benefits of oral drug delivery over injections, including improved safety, patient compliance and ease of administration.
“The ability to deliver oral peptides offers Ferring the opportunity to provide additional therapeutic choices to patients,” explained Alan Harris, Senior VP and R&D Executive Office of Ferring Pharmaceuticals.
Enteris’ Peptelligence platform is based on encapsulation of the client’s active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) using two excipients to form an ingestible formulation.
These include a permeation enhancer to aid gut absorption and solubilize the API, and a second excipient - citric acid - which serves as a multifunction biochemical transporter.
“We are impressed with Enteris' proprietary oral delivery technology and look forward to working with them to advance this development program," Harris added.
Ferring was unavailable for comment.
