Sustained 3-Month Delivery of Stabilized Exenatide Through Nanopore Membranes for

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The prevalence of Type 2 diabetes is expected to reach 20%-30% by 2050. In the last 8 years, a new class of drugs, called incretin mimetics, has been used successfully for the treatment of the disease. Incretin mimetics(including exenatide) have a very short half-life requiring frequent subcutaneous self-injections. Such delivery can be invasive, painful, present safety issues, and impact the patient's attitude towards medication adherence. Maintaining peptide stabilityand enabling the sustained long-term delivery of exenatide are expected to improve compliance, convenience, safety, cost, and treatment success. The current long acting formulation of exenatide is for only 1 week and does not allow for the medication to be removed if needed. The goal of the proposed program is to develop a small non-mechanical (passive) subcutaneous implant (reservoir) which will be able to deliver consistent, therapeutic levels of stable exenatide over a period of at least 3 months.