Santen Pharmaceutical Co., Ltd., of Osaka, Japan has begun Phase I/IIa trials of DE-102, its steroidal treatment for macular edema, employing Oakwood Laboratories’ Chroniject™ sustained release delivery technology. The product’s microsphere formulation and its sterile filling was accomplished at Oakwood’s Cleveland manufacturing facility.

“Oakwood is very pleased to have been able to solve some difficult technical issues in order to bring this product to commercial manufacturing scale, and to the point of clinical use,” said Mark Smith, Oakwood’s president. “We look forward to the continued development of this product.”

According to Mr. Smith, the company’s Chroniject technology has been shown to offer an adaptable and easily scaleable system for the development and manufacture of injectable sustained release dosage forms of multiple drug classes.