Enhancing in vivo Bioavailability in Beagle Dogs of GLM-7 as a Novel Anti-Leukemia Drug through a Self-Emulsifying Drug Delivery System for Oral Delivery

GLM-7 is a novel anti-leukemia drug in the pre-clinical study. The previous study shows that GLM-7 is a poorly water-soluble drug with low oral bioavailability. In this study, we employed the self-emulsifying drug delivery system (SEDDS) to improve the oral bioavailability of GLM-7. The GLM-7 SEDDS formulation was prepared using MCT as oil, ovolecithin as surfactant and Transcutol as co-surfactant, and the formulation parameters were optimized by the response surface methodology. The optimized GLM-7 SEDDS formulation showed a stable liquid state, and can automatically emulsify to form the isotropic emulsion once exposure to the water phase. The generated emulsion showed the spherical shape, and had an average size of about 399 nm and a zeta potential of about -42 mV. Compared to the GLM-7 dissolution less than 1.4% from pure GLM-7 powder (reference), the GLM-7 SEDDS formulation could remarkably enhance the in vitro dissolution to 83% in the medium of 0.1N HCL. The in vivo oral bioavailability of GLM-7 SEDDS formulation was investigated in beagle dogs. The results demonstrated that the GLM-7 SEDDS formulation significantly enhanced the plasma concentrations of GLM-7, and the Cmax reached to 878 ng/ml and was 9.2 folds as high as the Cmax 95.85 ng/ml of reference. Moreover, the area under the curve (AUC) of GLM-7 SEDDS formulation was 13.6 times higher than that of reference, which suggested that the SEDDS formulation remarkably increased the oral bioavailability of GLM-7.