Tafamidis & Diflunisal drug delivery systems based on chitosan/PVA matrix

Cardiovascular diseases now have the leading position of death globally and according to the World Health Organization claims equal to 17.9 million lives each year. One of the most dangerous problems is cardiac amyloidosis caused by the formation and deposition on the myocardium of a specific protein-polysaccharide complex – amyloid. The clinically used pharmaceutical agents against amyloidosis are very limited: currently there are only two non-selective hydrophobic agents– diflunisal and tafamidis. First one, initially is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug, due to its non-selective mode of the action has the wide range of side effects. Tafamidis, instead of its more therapeutic efficacy, is the most expensive drug among the cardiac medications: the yearly course costs appr. 225’000 $. One of the possible ways for the enhancing of the solubility and bioavailability, decreasing the dosage with simultaneous targeted effect is the encapsulation of the drug into polymer (biopolymer) matrixes. In contrast to the known diflunisal delivery systems, there are no any available data about the development of tafamidis delivery systems. In this study we report for the first time the encapsulation technique of tafamidis into a polymeric matrix based on the mixture of chitosan and polyvinyl alcohol (PVA). The release profile from the polymer matrix was analyzed, and no burst character was demonstrated. The obtained polymer matrixes have a great potential as drug carriers, and after further investigations in vitro and in vivo can be recommended for the formulation of modern drug delivery systems for tafamidis and diflunisal.