IntelliDrug Implant for Medicine Delivery in Alzheimer’s Disease Treatment Aleksandra E. Moscicka, * Kinga Czarnecka, Tomasz Ciach Summary: IntelliDrug it is a denture implant containing a reservoir with drug and making enable a galantamine transport via buccal mucosa by means of iontophor- esis. The in vitro experimental studies on drug passive and iontophoretic transport through porcine buccal mucosa were carrying out in horizontal two-chamber permeation cell with silver electrodes. The drug mass flux was investigated. The influences of initial drug concentration and current density for transport velocity were defined. Keywords: buccal mucosa; drug delivery system; galantamine; implant; iontophoresis Introduction The research on drug delivery systems has advanced considerably in recent years. It brings many improvements: the increase of drug transport efficiency, safety and convenience of treatment for suffering. Patients usually prefer oral rout of medi- cine delivery, however oral bioavailability is usually low and compounds are subjected to degradation in gastro-intestinal track or to hepatic first-pass metabolism. Other routes of administration are proposed such as nasal, pulmonary, transdermal or buccal. The oral cavity is an attractive site for delivery of drugs. The non-keratinized surface of buccal which is highly vascular- ized enables local or systemic delivery of drugs. The buccal route is generally used in the treatment of chronic disease when the prolonged release of compound is required because this mucosa is resistant to irritation and damage. The disadvantage of buccal route is absorption area limitation, short time of exposure and washing effect of saliva. [1,2] IntelliDrug Project IntelliDrug Project (‘‘Intelligent Intraoral Medicine Delivery Micro-system to Treat Addiction and Chronic Diseases’’) is aimed at developing controlled drug delivery system to provide an alternative approach for the treatment of opiate addiction and Alzheimer’s disease and diabetes. Intelli- Drug it is a denture implant containing a reservoir with drug and making enable a drug transport via buccal mucosa (Figure 1). The IntelliDrug Project overcomes dif- ficulties related to absorption through buccal mucosa and improves the drug tran- sport by means of iontophoresis. Ionto- phoresis is the application of an electrical potential across the tissue that causes a movement of charged particle. It is a non- invasive and painless method applied for drugs transport through skin and transder- mal diagnosis at present, [3–6] however it is very rarely using for non-keratinized tissue – buccal mucosa. [7] The drug applies in IntelliDrug implant for treating Alzheimer’s disease is galanta- mine  HBr. It is an acetylcholinesterase inhibitor and was approved by FDA for Alzheimer’s treatment in 2001. [8] Following oral administration, galantamine is 100% bioavailable, [9] but this route has disadvan- tages. Alzheimer’s disease is the most com- Macromol. Symp. 2007, 253, 134–138 DOI: 10.1002/masy.200750720 134 The Faculty of Chemical and Process Engineering, Warsaw University of Technology, ul. Warynskiego 1, 00-645 Warsaw, Poland E-mail: moscicka@ichip.pw.edu.pl Copyright ß 2007 WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim