Facultad de Ciencias de la Salud

Background: Cardiovascular (CV) polypills are a useful baseline treatment to prevent CV diseases by combining different drug classes in a single pill to simultaneously target more than one risk factor. The aim of the present trial was to determine whether the treatment with the CNIC-polypill was at least non-inferior to usual care in terms of low-density lipoprotein cholesterol (LDL-c) and systolic BP (SBP) values in subjects at high or very high risk without a previous CV event. Methods: The VULCANO was an international, multicentre open-label trial involving 492 participants recruited from hospital clinics or primary care centres. Patients were randomised to the CNIC-polypill -containing aspirin, atorvastatin, and ramipril- or usual care. The primary outcome was the comparison of the mean change in LDL-c and SBP values after 16 weeks of treatment between treatment groups. Results: The upper confidence limit of the mean change in LDL-c between treatments was below the prespecified margin (10 mg/dL) and above zero, and non-inferiority and superiority of the CNIC-polypill (p = 0.0001) was reached. There were no significant differences in SBP between groups. However, the upper confidence limit crossed the prespecified non-inferiority margin of 3 mm Hg. Significant differences favoured the CNIC-polypill in reducing total cholesterol (p = 0.0004) and non-high-density lipoprotein cholesterol levels (p = 0.0017). There were no reports of major bleeding episodes. The frequency of non-serious gastrointestinal disorders was more frequent in the CNICpolypill arm. Conclusion: The switch from conventional treatment to the CNIC-polypill approach was safe and appears a reasonable strategy to control risk factors and prevent CVD.

Chagas disease (CD) is a parasitic zoonosis endemic in Central and South America affecting nearly 10 million people, with 100 million people at high risk of contracting the disease. Treatment is only effective when received at the early stages of the disease and it involved two drugs (nifurtimox (NFX) and benznidazole (BNZ)). Both treatments require multiple daily administrations of high doses, suffer from variable efficacy and insufficient efficacy in chronic CD, many side effects, and a very long duration of treatment that results in poor compliance, while combined available therapies that lead to reduced duration of treatment are not available and polypharmacy reduces compliance and increases the cost further. Here we present self-nanoemulsified drug delivery systems (SNEDDS) able to produce easily scalable combined formulations of NFX and BNZ that can allow for tailoring of the dose and can be easily converted to oral solid dosage form by impregnation on mesoporous silica particles. SNEDDS demonstrated an enhanced solubilisation capacity for both drugs as demonstrated by flow-through studies and in vitro lipolysis studies. High loading of SNEDDS to Syloid 244 and 3050 silicas (2:1 w/w) allowed clinically translatable amounts of both NFX and BNZ to be loaded. Tablets prepared from NFX-BNZ combined SNEDDS loaded on Syloid 3050 silicas demonstration near complete dissolution in the flow through cell apparatus compared to NFX and BNZ commercial tablets respectively (Lampit® and Rochagan®). NFX-BNZ-SNEDDS demonstrated nanomolar efficacy in epimastigotes and amastigotes of T. cruzi with acceptable selectivity indexes and demonstrated enhanced survival and reduced parasitaemia in acute murine experimental models of CD. Thus, the results presented here illustrate the ability for an easily scalable and personalised combination oral therapy prepared from GRAS excipients, enabling treatment access worldwide for the treatment of CD.