Our Objectives

Dispersion and digestion are the critical points for the performance of orally administrated lipid-based drug delivery systems (LBDDS). This is because these processes cause the physicochemical properties of LBDDS to change and this can impact performance by triggering drug precipitation before the drug can be absorbed. Those working in the field know that this risk of drug precipitation may be mitigated through judicious selection of excipients; however, additional research and development is necessary to produce the best in vitro tools that can identify this risk before preclinical and clinical evaluations and guide the design of robust LBDDS.

The LFCS Consortium will focus on the development of globally accepted standard operating procedures (SOPs) for the in vitro evaluation of LBDDS, and then use these tests in conjunction with in vivo studies to define key performance criteria for this technology.

The academic partners of LFCS Consortium will carry out laboratory work that will underpin the development of these SOPs.

The communication inside and outside the LFCS Consortium will be managed through the Consortium website.

After acceptance of SOPs by regulatory authorities, and the publication of guidelines that can be used to identify robust lipid based formulations before in vivo testing, pharmaceutical scientists will be able to benefit from a systematic and rational approach to the development of promising poorly-water soluble drug candidates.

We aim to develop in vitro methods that are sufficiently robust to be universally adopted as standard methods for the evaluation of the fate of drugs following dispersion and digestion of LBDDS.

The Consortium will also work towards the establishment of a research database that serves as an evidence-based reference source for the formulation of poorly water-soluble drugs in lipid-based delivery systems.