Cycle Pharmaceuticals, Catalent Partner on Rare Disease Treatment

On Oct. 31, 2019, Cycle Pharmaceuticals announced that it has signed an agreement with Catalent to develop innovative formulations targeting rare diseases. The agreement covers four products in rare metabolic and neurological disorders, and each product will use Catalent’s Zydis oral disintegrating tablet (ODT) and Zydis Ultra technologies.

Zydis has well-established advantages over conventional oral dosage forms, including improved patient compliance, adherence, and convenience, according to the companies. The Zydis Ultra platform is the Catalent’s next generation ODT technology and allows for increased drug load and better taste masking to be incorporated into its Zydis ODT dosage form.

“Cycle’s core area of expertise is to improve rare-disease medicines in order to make life easier for patients of all ages. These drug products will benefit patients with a broad range of unmet needs. Zydis technology has consistently proven its effectiveness in overcoming challenges faced by patients, such as swallowing difficulties and large pill burdens. Working in partnership with Catalent to apply the Zydis technology to Cycle’s product pipeline will be life-changing for both patients and their caregivers,” said Antonio Benedetti, CEO of Cycle, in a company press release.

“Catalent has proven experience and expertise in drug formulation and working with partners to bring new therapies to market quickly. The Zydis technology platform has been shown to be very versatile and effective in developing easy-to-administer dose forms for innovators, and having evaluated Cycle’s molecules at our Swindon, UK, facility, we believe them to be excellent candidates for further development,” added Jonathan Arnold, president of Catalent’s Oral Drug Delivery business, in the press release.

Source: Cycle Pharmaceuticals