The Safety, Toleration, and Pharmacokinetics of Two Intravenous Voriconazole Formulations in Healthy Chinese Volunteers After Increasing Dose Administrations

Abstract Sulfobutyl ether‐beta‐cyclodextrin sodium salt contained in the marketed intravenous voriconazole injection as a solubilizer may cause harmful accumulations. This study aimed to evaluate the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics (PKs) of two intravenous voriconazole formulations containing excipients from different manufacturers using increasing dose administrations in healthy Chinese volunteers. A randomized, double‐blind, placebo‐controlled trial was conducted in three cohorts with 42 healthy Chinese volunteers. Each cohort of 14 volunteers was allocated in proportion (8:4:2) to test the formulation, reference voriconazole, or placebo successively by single‐dose then multiple‐dose administrations of 3, 4, and 6 mg/kg. Forty‐one volunteers completed all drug administrations. The pharmacokinetics of test formulations are characterized by high interindividual variability (coefficient of variance of C max up to 68.0%, AUC 0‐τ up to 70.2%, and nonlinear PKs with a regression coefficient of C max = 1.31 and AUC 0‐τ = 1.75 in a single dose). In the steady state, R Auc of the test drug versus reference drug of the 3, 4, and 6 mg/kg dose group were 5.2 and 5.3, 5.6 and 6.3, and 5.8 and 5.5, respectively, and Rc max were 2.5 and 2.7, 2.6 and 3.1, and 2.8 and 2.6, respectively. Eighty‐three adverse events with 37 transient visual disturbances were mild. PKs with high interindividual variability, nonlinear characteristics, and significant dose‐dependent accumulation were comparable between the two formulations. Overall, the safety of the test formulation was acceptable.