Life Sciences & Biotechnology
Title : | Nose-to-brain (N2B) delivery of in-situ gel containing rotigotine-loaded hybrid nanoparticles for Alzheimer’s disease |
Area of research : | Life Sciences & Biotechnology |
Focus area : | Nanomedicine and Neurology |
Principal Investigator : | Dr. Murali Monohar Pandey, Birla Institute Of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan |
Timeline Start Year : | 2023 |
Timeline End Year : | 2026 |
Contact info : | pandeymm@pilani.bits-pilani.ac.in |
Details
Executive Summary : | The number of Alzheimer’s patients is rapidly increasing across the globe including our country, India. This research endeavour proposes enhancement in the efficiency of Alzheimer’s treatment. At present, all the approved treatments provide symptomatic treatment rather than a complete cure. Moreover, the available treatments are not effective to all Alzheimer’s disease (AD) patients to a uniform extent. Hence, there is a need for new therapeutic modalities extending more effective symptomatic relief from the disease. At various suitable platforms, researchers have discussed drug repurposing and found it to be advantageous as the safety profile and pharmacokinetics are known in this case. Rotigotine (RTG) is identified as one of the drugs that could be re-purposed for treating Alzheimer's disease. The suggestion was put forward based on the fact that cognitive functions were improved. In this research work, we propose to utilize the potential of RTG as a new treatment option for AD with an intent to widen therapeutic spectrum of the disease. However, the commercially available transdermal patch of RTG bears issues of poor (37% only) systemic bioavailability, which is further reported to vary with respect to its site of application. Furthermore, after systemic absorption, the brain availability of RTG remains a problem due to poor permeation of the drug across blood-brain barrier (BBB). In this work, we propose to develop in-situ gel containing RTG-loaded lipid polymer-hybrid nanoparticles (LPHN) intended for intranasal (also called as nose-to-brain (N2B)) delivery. This strategy will offer multifold advantages. Firstly, N2B delivery will lead to direct entry of the formulation into brain particularly via olfactory bulb and trigeminal nerve pathway by avoiding BBB. This will result in substantial enhancement in brain bioavailability of the drug. Secondly, LPHN proposed in our study to load RTG is considered as an advanced and versatile system that has the potential to overcome respective drawbacks of lipidic and polymeric nanocarriers. The hybrid nanoparticles are highly efficient systems demonstrating high drug loading capacity, improved permeation patterns, better colloidal stability, biocompatibility, and superior controlled drug release pattern. Lastly, the in-situ gel proposed to embed RTG-loaded hybrid nanoparticles will help in avoiding mucociliary clearance and some other disadvantages associated with the N2B delivery such as inter- and intra-patient variability, etc. Furthermore, the method of preparation proposed for hybrid nanoparticle is scalable and hence, the technology could be transferred to the pharmaceutical industries for commercial use. Moreover, this research work would provide a platform for effective brain delivery of other drugs used in the treatment of central nervous system diseases or disorders. |
Co-PI: | Dr Deepak Chitkara, Birla Institute Of Technology and Science (BITS), Pilani, Rajasthan-333031 |
Total Budget (INR): | 25,78,010 |
Organizations involved