Quotient Clinical, a provider of early stage and specialized drug development services, has signed an agreement with Nuformix Technologies to evaluate Nuformix’ lead pharmaceutical cocrystal, NXP001, using translational pharmaceutics in the field of oncology. Quotient will use its Translational Pharmaceutics platform to develop a formulated oral NXP001 cocrystal product and validate its performance in healthy subjects.
 
Pharmaceutical cocrystals are re-engineered crystalline forms of small molecule drugs, in which a drug and excipient are crystallized together. Resulting cocrystals can offer improvements, such as solubility and dissolution of otherwise poorly soluble drugs.
 
Translational Pharmaceutics integrates formulation development and real-time adaptive GMP manufacturing with clinical research to help accelerate the screening and optimization of formulations — for both new chemical entities and life cycle management of existing drugs.  
 
John McDermott, executive director, Drug Product Optimization, Quotient Clinical, said, “We are pleased to announce this new client agreement with Nuformix, whose cocrystal approach further broadens our experience in addressing bioavailability challenges for poorly soluble drugs. This program of work is an excellent illustration of how we can assist our emerging biopharma customers to rapidly validate novel drug delivery technologies and new product concepts.”
 
Dr. Dan Gooding, chief executive officer, Nuformix plc, said, “The appointment of Quotient was not a difficult decision as its Translational Pharmaceutics is perfectly suited to the needs of our NXP001 programme – we were very impressed with Quotient’s overall approach versus alternative options. We look forward to commencing the clinical study and also evaluating the platform’s potential for future Nuformix programs.”