A promising alliance in multiple sclerosis treatment. Microarray patch for the administration of beta interferon: A preclinical minipig study

The transdermal delivery of large molecules such as proteins and vaccines faces enormous challenges and at the same time holds great potential for the non-invasive treatment of local and systemic diseases. To demonstrate the pharmaceutical utility of microarray patches (MAP) recombinant human beta interferon-1a (IFN) containing MAPs were prepared and used in an animal study. Serum IFN levels were measured for 5 days in minipigs which are the animal model most comparable to human skin. The peak IFN serum level, the maximum drug concentration (Cmax) and the time to reach the maximum concentration (Tmax) were 4.6 ng/mL and 2 h for the low-dose MAP group, respectively. The area under the curve (AUC) of this MAP group was 118 ng*h/mL, while the intramuscular injection (IM) was 146 ng*h/mL and the intradermal injection was 140 ng/mL. IFN-MAPs did not damage the investigated application sites of the skin of the administered minipigs in any way. The results of this study show that Microarray patch technology have great potential to provide an alternative to injectable therapy systems.