Roby Zomer, co-founder and Managing Director of MGC Pharma, discusses the acceptance of its Patent Application for its drug delivery innovation – SNEDDS.
Accepted by the Slovenian Intellectual Property Office, MGC Pharma expects the patent for its drug delivery innovation, the ‘Self-nano emulsifying drug delivery system (SNEDDS) of Cannabinoids-Ionic Complex Concentrate’, to be issued within the next 12 months.
Co-founder and CEO of MGC Pharmaceuticals, a European-based biopharma company specialising in the production and development of phytocannabinoid-derived medicines, Roby Zomer, describes the SNEDDS system as a “new frontier in medicine”.
A new frontier in medicine
MGC Pharma’s Self-nano emulsifying Cannabinoids-Ionic Complex Concentrate utilises Graft Polymer’s proprietary GraftBioTM SNEDDS technology, which is a unique platform to deliver active ingredients more effectively in higher concentrations to the cells, improving the bioavailability and synergy of natural active ingredients.
“The whole idea of drug delivery systems is to get the medicine to its target in the body in the best way. In some cases, when we are looking at neurological disorders and our target is the brain or nervous system, or when we are dealing with inflammatories and inflamed areas, this can be topical, or it can be systematic in our bodies. So, we are trying to identify the right mechanism or the right carrier that is the best way of delivering the drug to its target,” says Zomer.
“Until now, most of the drugs around cannabis or cannabinoids were oil-based carriers, which has its flaws such as using too much oil. If you imagine children taking CBD dissolved in oil eventually, they are drinking 100 to 150ml of oil every month. Think about a healthy person with no disorder – even without the cannabis inside, just drinking oil in this quantity will create a lot of side effects and problems.
“We are reducing the amount of the active substance that the patient needs, who will therefore consume less oil, and therefore experience less adverse events. We are changing the carrier into powders or water using SNEDDS. It is one of the newest platforms in the biotech industry that allows us to transfer the active substance from the oral mucosa to the blood plasma.
“When we are dealing with the blood-brain barrier and bioavailability, we try to go below 100 nanometres and, by making the SNEDDS effective, we can go to 50 nanometres which means we are bypassing much better from the oral mucosa to the blood plasma – we are getting a much more efficient active substance, better bioavailability, and better absorption into the plasma.
“The other element is transforming from an oil carrier into liquid and solid so, we are reducing the harm, side effects, or toxicity of overusing oil in our body which has its own problems regardless of the active substance.
“From our perspective, we see there are different types of SNEDDS and each one needs to be adjusted according to the treatment we want to achieve. For example, a while ago, we updated the patent on CimetrA, a nano-emulsifying drug carrier. We are now using an ionic liquid, so it is a different method which is salt in room temperature liquid, and therefore dissolves in water and creates our cannabinoid-type programme – it is the new frontier of active substances, not just in the cannabinoid sector but in the biopharma sector in general.”
Improving medicine for patients
Zomer says MGC Pharma aims to improve medicines by identifying and discovering new drugs and active substances to provide patients with safer, more effective, and affordable treatments.
“We are working on a two vector platform. First of all, we are trying to identify a new active substance – the same as we did in our brain cancer research, and also improving the drug carrier. We are creating a new API that will transform better in the body, have better pharmacokinetic data and bioavailability, and eventually, will be able to provide the patient with more effective and safe treatment that is also more affordable,” says Zomer. “This is a big transformation from what we see in the industry and from phytocannabinoid and phytomedicine in general.
“We are working with a company who are providing us with the platform for the medicines CannEpilTM and CogniCannTM, and running Phase 2 studies, however, we are not using this platform. We will introduce this platform to the medicine in the next study. CimetrA, which has entered into Phase 3 studies, is using the same bio-platform as the SNEDDS.
“Our brain cancer treatment is using a slightly different platform that can provide brain treatment but in a non-invasive manner – so, it will be able to take the medicine through the mucosa and the active substance will reach the brain stem cells and the tumour through the blood, without the need to do brain surgery or needling into the brain. The result we have seen so far is a very dramatic improvement and we have been able to achieve amazing results on CBG and CBD in targeting the stem cells. The next step is to complete another round of tests, then to move to an animal model and then to patients.”
Drug delivery innovation
The SNEDDS platform will be protected by the patent for the next 20 years – allowing MGC Pharma the freedom to operate and to discover new formulations to bring products to market.
Zomer said: “For the company, this patent means that we are now in the area of the bigger players – the platform will give us a new frontier of medicine, and help us to provide new formulations that are protected and out of the risk of medical lawsuits from other companies. This gives the company and investors the strength that we know what we are doing.
“I can say that we will continue to develop more patents and expand the patents into territories, such as North America, and other territories according to the development in our research.”
Zomer says the company hopes CimetrA will be sold later this year, and that CannEpil will enter Phase 2 studies with the hope of also being introduced to patients this year under the early access to medicines scheme (EAMS).
“We are already providing this to patients in Australia and the UK, but I would say that we will see patients benefitting from this drug platform later in 2021 and more in 2022.
“Over the past two years we have registered two new genetics that are protected until 2045 – so we are patenting our genetics, patenting our drug carriers and patenting our formulation. The next level will be to create new tablets and capsules that also incorporate new drug carriers to benefit different treatments.
“We have a lot of developments in all the sectors and we are hoping to bring more surprises to the market in the next few years.”
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