Sugar-coated delivery

Targeting toxic drugs only to where they are needed in the body is a goal of many drug delivery technologies. Glycoform Ltd. believes that its sugar-based LEAPT delivery system will do just that by taking advantage of specific sugar-binding proteins found on the surfaces of different cell types. A recent article in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences provided proof of principle for the LEAPT system in a mouse model of hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC).

LEAPT (lectin-directed enzyme-activated prodrug therapy) is initially being developed for tissue selective delivery of prodrugs. The two-step LEAPT drug delivery technology - in which an activator capped with a tissue-specific sugar is administered with a sugar-capped prodrug - grew out of Glycoform's expertise in sugar chemistry. ...