Już wkrótce chorzy na stwardnienie rozsiane otrzymają dostęp do tańszych i skuteczniejszych leków. Opracowana w Polsce technologia produkcji tabletek zawierających kladrybinę przyniesie prawdziwy przełom na rynku, zwiększając dostęp do skutecznego leczenia.
Łukasiewicz – Institute of Industrial Chemistry signed an agreement with the National Centre for Research and Development (NCRD) to start the project titled “Development of an innovative technology for the production of a medicinal product used in the treatment of multiple sclerosis”. The undertaking, which is worth PLN 38.8 million, will be co-financed with EU funds at the sum of PLN 20.4 million.
We want effective multiple sclerosis treatment to be available to every patient. A new, cheaper, effective drug will be developed in our laboratories. We will create it from scratch; starting with the synthesis of the active ingredient, through the development of the drug technology, we will carry out the entire scale-up process until we have a product ready for sale in pharmacies. By doing so, we will break the current market monopoly responsible for such high treatment costs.
dr inż. Ewa Śmigiera, dyrektor Łukasiewicz – IChP
The scope of the project includes carrying out, a number of complementary research works in the areas of chemistry, physico-chemistry, analytical studies, studies of drug formulation technology with process scaling and the development of documentation required by pharmaceutical law to confirm the quality, efficacy and safety of a generic oral pill with cladribine API. Developing the drug will be based on the company’s own proprietary solutions, and the overarching goal of the project is to register a new multiple sclerosis treatment drug. One of the key research and technological problems will be to conduct a large pool of experiments with critical analysis of the results in order to obtain a stable formulation of the medicinal product under laboratory conditions and later in a scale-up process in a controlled area.
Our advantage consists in the fact that we have many years of experience in the synthesis of active substances, including the production of cladribine. Our skills, backed by decades of experience, have been successfully applied in the development of further pharmaceutical manufacturing technologies, including the production of Biodribin®, a drug successfully used in oncology therapy. The same active substance can be used in tablets for the treatment of the high-functioning projective form of multiple sclerosis. This constitutes the aim of our project activities.
Wojciech Maszewski, dyrektor Departamentu Produktów Farmaceutycznych Łukasiewicz – IChP
Łukasiewicz – IChP is the only Polish manufacturer of the active substance cladribine, obtained on the basis of its own technology as well as know-how, and produced in its own laboratories. This makes the entire process independent of the changing external environment (e.g. external producers of active substances).
Currently, there is only one oral formulation containing cladribine available on the market, which has patent protection for the drug form and dosage regimen. The lack of competition results in that the price of this drug is very high (up to several thousand zlotys per pill), making the availability of the product to patients significantly limited. The market launch of the medicinal product developed under the Łukasiewicz – IChP project, used in the treatment of multiple sclerosis, will significantly shape this market segment.
It is estimated that there are 2.8 million people with multiple sclerosis worldwide. According to the Ministry of Health, the number of patients in Poland in 2012 was 16.44/10 000 of the population, and already twice as many in 2021. Developments in medicine and increased access to treatment have meant that the progression of the disease can be significantly slowed down and patients can lead almost completely normal and active lives.
Stwardnienie rozsiane (SM) jest przewlekłą, nieuleczalną chorobą ośrodkowego układu nerwowego. Jej bezpośrednia przyczyna wciąż nie jest znana, ale powszechnie przyjmuje się jej autoimmunologiczne podłoże. Polega na wieloogniskowym uszkodzeniu mózgu i rdzenia kręgowego. Aktywność choroby i tempo narastania niesprawności są różne u poszczególnych pacjentów, jednak ich stan neurologiczny systematycznie się pogarsza. Jest to choroba wyniszczająca organizm zarówno pod względem fizycznym, jak i psychicznym. Jednym z najskuteczniej hamujących rozwój choroby preparatów jest kladrybina.
