The oral delivery of peptides faces several significant challenges due to their inherent instability, limited permeability, and vulnerability to enzymatic degradation in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. One promising formulation approach of improving oral bioavailability (BA) of peptides is the use of chemical absorption enhancers (AbE) which transiently improve their permeability across epithelial membranes in the GI tract. However, with more than 250 AbE candidates with promising preclinical results identified in the literature, only a few cases were successfully applied to oral peptide formulations and demonstrated an increase of oral BA in clinics. The presentation will showcase the current absorption enhancer technologies for oral biologics and share J&J’s own approach to developing enabling oral peptide formulations. To this end, the presented data will hopefully shed new light on better understanding of translating preclinical results of oral peptides with AbE to humans during early drug development.

Dajun Sun

Principal Scientist, Oral Solid Development

Johnson & Johnson Innovative Medicine