For a brighter future...
The Foundation has made an award of £26,335 over two years to The Robert Gordon University in Aberdeen. The award will support work supervised by Dr Graeme Kay in the School of Pharmacy and Life Sciences aimed at the Formulation and Evaluation of Novel Dosage Forms of Cysteamine and Cysteamine Prodrugs for the Treatment of Cystinosis.
Specifically the project aims to produce formulations which can be delivered as a suppository. If successful this approach has three potential advantages. It avoids oral delivery for patients who have difficulty swallowing, would reduce gastric disturbance and would avoid the significant metabolism of the drug by the liver. It may have particular benefits for very young children.
A second aim of the work is to create an improved formulation of Cysteamine for ophthalmic delivery. At present cystinotic patients use aqueous eye drops which do not provide an efficient delivery method and need frequent application. In this project formulations with shear thinning properties are the aim, in the belief that these will give improved behaviour in the eye.
The project has been going for one year already and has made a good start. The support from the Foundation will allow it to be completed.
