ENTERPRISE SPONSOR: EXCIPIENTS
SPI Pharma, one of That's Nice's Road to 2021 sponsors, discusses how the company is envisioning the future of the pharma/biopharma industry.
The pharmaceutical industry, as a part of the larger healthcare system. has seen and will continue to see explosive growth in product innovation and diversity of therapeutic offerings. Looking into the future, the advancements will not just be in small molecules and biologics, but will expand into targeted therapy, genomics, digital therapies based on artificial intelligence, and so forth. Some of the new models being adopted to achieve expedient and successful drug launches: fragment-based screening (FBS) processes used in the discovery of lead molecules resulting in significantly fewer compounds for screening, machine learning to identify patterns enabling design of effective clinical trials, and biomonitoring. When it comes to disruptive technologies, there are several being pursued. Some of the noteworthy ones are DIY genome sequencing, body sensors, an end of human clinicals, and nanorobots in blood.
SPI Pharma plans to focus on those specific parts of the major pharma trends that we believe we can impact using our broad set of innovative technological tools.
While several of these will end up being used to create new, cutting-edge therapies, at the ground level, pharmaceutical regulators and government agencies will most likely force the drug developers and other technology enablers to go beyond just successful therapeutic outcomes. These new technologies will need to be focused on patients, not just outcomes. They should consider patient-centric drug designs and apply technology to address patient experience, accessibility, affordability, and adherence for individual patients.
Simply put, what good is cutting-edge therapy if a high level of patient compliance to the regimen cannot be achieved for any one of the reasons cited above? As is well known, the current level of non-compliance is a significant cost to healthcare systems and negatively impacts people’s lives around the world. In the coming decade, we expect personalized medicine to become more mainstream, based on continuous monitoring, while patient-centered therapies will be practiced more broadly.
SPI Pharma plans to focus on those specific parts of the major pharma trends that we believe we can impact using our broad set of innovative technological tools. They are in the areas of IP-based patient-centric dosage forms, especially for pediatric and geriatric patients, buccal and sublingual delivery systems for peptides and vaccines, bioenhanced cannabinoids for pharmaceutical indications, microencapsulation of APIs to enhance functionality, and an elegant solution to issues surrounding syrups and suspensions, to name a few. In the category of the disruptive model, SPI Pharma is pursuing patient-centric initiatives with a view on ease of administration and personalized medicine. SPI Pharma continues to develop and pursue IP in this field and the technical/commercial feasibility of this hypothesis to underpin further development.
