Development and Characterization of Hyaluronan-Based Oral Absorbable Drug Delivery Systems and Its Biomedical Applications

Given that HA is scientifically proved to be orally available to the body, this not only provides an active mechanism but also an effective carrier for the improvement of the oral absorption of chemical drugs and peptide drugs when they are incorporated in HA-based drug delivery carrier in the forms of microsphere or protein complex. Since CD44, membrane receptor for HA, is widely overexpressed in many cancer histotypes, HA-drug bioconjugates should be markedly selective for tumor cells and provide advantages in drug solubilization, stabilization, localization, and controlled release. Since that, fully understand what is the stability of HA in the GI tract before absorption, how is HA with different MW absorbed, what is its extent of first-pass effect of liver after absorption, and how are parent HA and its fragments distributed in the body would be essential to take good utilization of HA as drug delivery system for oral administration in both medical and biomedical treatments. A threeyear research project entitled “Development and Characterization of Hyaluronan- Based Oral-Absorbable Drug Delivery Systems and its Biomedical Applications”is proposed. Oral absorption, distribution, metabolism and elimination (ADME) of HA and QDot-HA with three different molecular weights (50, 250, and 1000 kDa) orally administered in rats will be characterized with comparison to intravenous administration in the first year period. ADME of HA and QDot-HA in the dosage forms of protein complex, anticancer drug-loaded microspheres, and (QDot-HA-) HA-anticancer drug conjugates will be examined after oral administration in the second year period. Clinical treatments of osteoarthritis and anticancer effectiveness in animal model will be evaluated in the third year period. In the final, optimal physical characteristics of dosage forms of HA can be defined for HA-based oralabsorbable drug delivery systems for biomedical applications.