It seems that chewing gum is a good method of drug delivery. Last week, I wrote an entry about L-cysteine-containing chewing gum developed by Finnish researchers as a therapy agaisnt oral cancer. This time, Generex Biotechnology collaborates with medicinal chewing gum developer Fertin Pharma A/S to develop a chewing gum containing metformin, a generic drug used for the treatment of Type-2 diabetes mellitus and obesity.

The collaboration will seek to combine Generex's proprietary buccal drug delivery platform technologies with Fertin's know-how related to gum base formulations, solubilization systems, and taste masking/modification to create a metformin medicinal chewing gum that will deliver metformin into the body via the buccal mucosa (the inner lining of the mouth) rather than in its current tablet form.

The developers hope that this method of delivery will circumvent adverse side effects associated with taking metformin in tablet form such as nausea, vomiting, abdominal pain, diarrhea, abdominal bloating, and increased gas production. Clinical studies are still being planned, but Generex hopes to market the metformin chewing gum in tandem with Oral-lyn(TM), Generex's proprietary oral insulin spray product.

See details from the Generex press release. For more info on metformin, see entry in DrugInfo.