A co-formulation of supramolecularly stabilized insulin and pramlintide enhances mealtime glucagon suppression in diabetic pigs

Nat Biomed Eng. 2020 May;4(5):507-517. doi: 10.1038/s41551-020-0555-4. Epub 2020 May 11.

Abstract

Treatment of patients with diabetes with insulin and pramlintide (an amylin analogue) is more effective than treatment with insulin only. However, because mixtures of insulin and pramlintide are unstable and have to be injected separately, amylin analogues are only used by 1.5% of people with diabetes needing rapid-acting insulin. Here, we show that the supramolecular modification of insulin and pramlintide with cucurbit[7]uril-conjugated polyethylene glycol improves the pharmacokinetics of the dual-hormone therapy and enhances postprandial glucagon suppression in diabetic pigs. The co-formulation is stable for over 100 h at 37 °C under continuous agitation, whereas commercial formulations of insulin analogues aggregate after 10 h under similar conditions. In diabetic rats, the administration of the stabilized co-formulation increased the area-of-overlap ratio of the pharmacokinetic curves of pramlintide and insulin from 0.4 ± 0.2 to 0.7 ± 0.1 (mean ± s.d.) for the separate administration of the hormones. The co-administration of supramolecularly stabilized insulin and pramlintide better mimics the endogenous kinetics of co-secreted insulin and amylin, and holds promise as a dual-hormone replacement therapy.

Publication types

  • Research Support, N.I.H., Extramural
  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Animals
  • Bridged-Ring Compounds / chemistry
  • Diabetes Mellitus, Experimental / drug therapy*
  • Diffusion
  • Drug Administration Routes
  • Drug Compounding*
  • Drug Stability
  • Glucagon / metabolism*
  • Hydrogen-Ion Concentration
  • Imidazoles / chemistry
  • Insulin / administration & dosage
  • Insulin / pharmacokinetics
  • Insulin / pharmacology
  • Insulin / therapeutic use*
  • Islet Amyloid Polypeptide / administration & dosage
  • Islet Amyloid Polypeptide / pharmacokinetics
  • Islet Amyloid Polypeptide / pharmacology
  • Islet Amyloid Polypeptide / therapeutic use*
  • Male
  • Polyethylene Glycols / chemistry
  • Rats, Sprague-Dawley
  • Signal Transduction / drug effects
  • Swine

Substances

  • Bridged-Ring Compounds
  • Imidazoles
  • Insulin
  • Islet Amyloid Polypeptide
  • cucurbit(7)uril
  • Polyethylene Glycols
  • Glucagon
  • pramlintide