Marinomed Biotech AG (Marinomed) – an established Viennese biopharmaceutical company with a global presence – has published the results of scientific investigations that clearly demonstrate the benefits of its Marinosolv® technology platform.

The study, which is available to read now in the European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics, shows that the solubility of the immunomodulator tacrolimus is 200 times greater in Marinosolv® than in water.

This higher solubility could offer significant advantages for producers of tacrolimus-based medicines as well as patients – advantages which Marinomed is already exploiting with the development of Tacrosolv, its product candidate for the treatment of allergic conjunctivitis and dry eye syndrome.

Marinomed’s Chief Executive Officer Dr. Andreas Grassauer commented: “These are important results in terms of demonstrating the effectiveness of our Marinosolv® technology platform. This is the basis of our two product candidates Budesolv and Tacrosolv which we are developing for rapidly growing billion-dollar markets.”

Budesolv, a solubilized version of the corticosteroid budesonide developed for the treatment of allergic rhinitis, is already being tested in a pivotal clinical phase III trial, and Tacrosolv is expected to reach the phase II trial stage for the treatment of conjunctivitis in 2019. The next step for Tacrosolv will then be a pivotal phase III trial for allergic conjunctivitis and dry eye syndrome.

The Marinosolv® platform behind both product candidates was developed by Marinomed in 2015. At present, 40% of approved medicines and nearly 90% of therapeutic molecules currently in the research pipelines of pharmaceutical companies are poorly soluble.*

Marinosolv® makes it possible to improve the water solubility of otherwise hardly soluble compounds – resulting in a lower drug dosage and a faster action. The Marinosolv® platform therefore opens up opportunities for the development of products that offer improved local availability of active ingredients in sensitive parts of the body such as the eyes and nose. The impact on the rest of the body is subsequently lower, meaning side effects could be reduced. Marinosolv® also enables preservative-free products to be manufactured with lower production costs.

The data on solubilized tacrolimus published by Marinomed’s research team demonstrates how effectively Marinosolv® can function.

Commenting on Marinomed’s development objectives for its proprietary platforms, Dr. Grassauer said: “We are planning to capitalize on Marinosolv® to enter the multi-billion-dollar market for the treatment of allergies and eye diseases. All over the world, products from our other platform Carragelose® have already proved successful in treating the causes of colds and flu-like symptoms. We are going to expand both platforms to further strengthen our positions in extremely promising growth markets.”