This Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) Phase II project focuses on the enhancement of water solubility and efficacy of sparingly soluble anticancer drugs. Many of the clinically accepted anticancer drugs have side effect problems because of the dosages that must be used to overcome low solubility and bioavailability properties. A new delivery vehicle has been developed, which, when attached to known chemotherapeutic agents , increases water solubility and improves the drugs anticancer activity in in-vitro tests. The Phase II goals are to evaluate further enhancement of solubility with modified delivery segments, do in-vivo evaluations in mice with human tumor xenografts, and to do pharmacokinetic studies of the drugs in the rat model. The commercial application of this technology is in cancer chemotherapy. Increased solubility and bioavailability should reduce the quantity and side effects of the expensive drugs that are currently used. Furthermore, certain drugs that could not be used previously because of poor cellular uptake, might now be made available using this mode of delivery.
