Quotient Clinical, a U.K. provider of specialist early stage drug development services, and Capsugel, a Morristown, N.J.-based provider of dosage solutions for the healthcare industry, have formed a collaboration to enable the rapid development and clinical assessment of lipid-based formulations. Together, the companies will use their technology and expertise to address the drug delivery challenges of poorly soluble molecules with limited oral bioavailability.

The collaboration integrates Quotient’s RapidFACT real time clinical manufacture and testing service with Capsugel’s lipid-based formulation expertise and manufacturing capability. With up to 70% of the industry’s development pipeline consisting of molecules with poor solubility, the collaboration will fast track the effective clinical evaluation of lipid-based drug delivery systems, while optimizing the drug product for downstream development. Quotient will utilize Capsugel’s CFS liquid capsule filling and sealing technology at its facility in Nottingham and will be able to access the formulation expertise in Capsugel’s development center in Strasbourg.

“The collaboration with Capsugel will help our customers address prevalent drug delivery challenges for poorly soluble compounds in a more effective way,” said Mark Egerton, managing director of Quotient Clinical. “It will further empower our RapidFACT service by ensuring that selected drug products can be rapidly scaled-up and transitioned into downstream development—further reducing timelines to critical development milestones.”

Keith Hutchison, senior vice president of R&D, Capsugel, added, “Our expertise with poorly soluble drugs includes a proprietary predictive modeling technology based on an extensive database of lipid formulations that allows us to find the best formulas quickly. We also have a deep knowledge of capsules and our Licaps liquid filling and sealing technology helps to speed up the development process. These are perfect complements to Quotient’s ability to accelerate the generation of human clinical data and we look forward to offering the new service to our global customers.”