The history behind Sensidose

The idea behind Sensidose started already in the mid 1990’s. The founders Professors Sten-Magnus Aquilonius and Christer Nyström, both from Uppsala University, were previously active in the company NeoPharma.

Neopharma developed a method for the continuous delivery of levodopa directly to the small intestine with the help of a pump and a specifically developed gel (Duodopa®).

This treatment method, gave a very smooth, controllable and adjustable levels of levodopa in the blood. Duodopa has proven to be an appreciated addition to the treatment option for patients in the late phase of Parkinson’s disease. The founders realized that, even if you orally cannot achieve a continuous intake of levodopa, similarly as you can do with Duodopa® it should, with the help of micro-tablets and a more frequent and individualized treatment, be possible to improve care for patients in an earlier phase of the disease.

Sensidose was founded in 1998 to realize this possibility, however, it took until 2008 for the development to take off.

Founders

Sten-Magnus Aquilonius and Christer Nyström founded Sensidose in 1998.

Sten-Magnus Aquilonius is professor emeritus at the Department of Neuroscience and Christer Nyström is former professor of Galenic Pharmacy at Uppsala University. Both founders were involved in the development of the medicine Duodopa® within the Uppsala company Neopharma.

Duodopa was a new concept for the treatment of severely ill parkinsonian patients based upon the principle of CDS, Continuous Dopaminergic Stimulation, hence a stable, continuous supply of levodopa by delivering the medicine directly to intestinal sites where the drug is taken up and thereby avoiding troublesome fluctuations of levodopa that results in clinical unwanted effects. Duodopa treatment allows for individual fine tuning of the dose to optimize treatment.

To enable individualized dosing of oral tablets is the idea behind Sensidose. By means of microtablets, containing smaller subunits of levodopa, it should be possible to fine tune pharmacotherapy much in the way as is done with Duodopa, but without an invasive procedure.

Using microtablets it should be possible to treat also patients with advanced Parkinsons especiallycially when the “therapeutic window” is narrow and where standard medication is suboptimal. To facilitate individualized dosing it was evident that a dipsesing device coupled with an electronic diary was needed.

Microtablets and individualized dosing are foreseen to be of importance in several other conditions such as pain treatment, epilepsy, in pediatrics and oncology.

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