IACTA Pharmaceuticals has been licensed for a new dry eye treatment in North America.
The privately held pharmaceutical company announced in January 2017 that it had acquired the rights to develop and commercialize NM133, an investigational medicine designed to help treat dry eye, from its developer, Nanomerics Ltd.
“We are enthusiastic about partnering with Nanomerics and are grateful that they have placed their trust in us as their North American licensee,” says Damon Burrows, founder and CEO of IACTA Pharmaceuticals. “We strongly believe in the promise of MET technology for the treatment of a range of conditions including dry eye.”
Nanomerics is a privately held, UK-based, research-stage company with a proprietary Molecular Envelope Technology (MET) licensed from University College London that allows a hydrophobic drug such as cyclosporine to be encapsulated and delivered to the tissues of the eye.
“Nanomerics believes IACTA is the ideal North American licensee for NM133,” says Professor Andreas Schatzlein, CEO of Nanomerics. “The need for better medicines remains undiminished and drugs need to be used to their full potential to deliver patient benefit.
Nanomerics’ Molecular Envelope Technology (MET) is engineered at the nanoscale to efficiently deliver drugs for a variety of applications, Schatzlein says.
“NM133 is a product in which many of the MET attributes are being exploited to bring tangible benefits to those suffering from dry eye disease.”
About MET
Molecular Envelope Technology (MET) nanoparticles are engineered from biocompatible polymers. MET particles are engineered by creating amphiphilic polymers which can self-assemble into micelles.
Hydrophobic drugs can be encapsulated into these micelles with high efficacy and are accommodated in the hydrophobic nanodomains. The MET nanoparticles are stable and small (~50 nm). Molecular dynamics simulations demonstrate that the material is encapsulated in a very dynamic fashion, which facilitates drug release across barriers.
About NM133
NM133 is a nano enabled form of cyclosporine A that is being investigated for the treatment of dry eye.
Cyclosporine A is an immunosuppressant that helps tear secretion and improve tear film stability which improves the symptoms of Dry Eye Syndrome patients. (Mantelli F, Massaro-Giordano M, Macchi I, Lambiase A, Bonini S. The cellular mechanisms of dry eye: from pathogenesis to treatment. J Cell Physiol. 2013; 228(12): 2253-6.)
However, regardless of cyclosporine A’s benefits, it is an extremely hydrophobic drug. Hydrophobic means it “hates water” and simply does not mix with water. For that reason, ophthalmic formulations of cyclosporine typically rely on an oil-in-water emulsion for drug delivery into the tissues of the eye. NM133 offers a completely new approach to the delivery of cyclosporine A.
Using the patent-protected MET, NM133 effectively wraps and solubilizes cyclosporine A in a protective cover, helping it across the epithelial barriers of the eye.
About IACTA Pharmaceuticals, Inc.
IACTA Pharmaceuticals, located in Newport Beach, California, is a privately held company focused on bringing the latest technology to the healthcare industry and eyecare specifically.
For more information, visit iactapharma.com
