Aprecia Pharmaceuticals and Cycle Pharmaceuticals Partner to Develop 3D-Printed Orphan Drugs

3DP Technology and life-saving drugs combine to deliver significant quality-of-life benefits for rare disease patients

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Dec 12, 2017, 08:00 ET

CINCINNATI and CAMBRIDGE, England, Dec. 12, 2017 /PRNewswire/ -- Aprecia Pharmaceuticals, LLC ("Aprecia"), The 3DP Pharmaceutical Company, and Cycle Pharmaceuticals, Ltd. ("Cycle") today announced they have signed a partnership agreement to develop and commercialize orphan drugs using three-dimensionally printed ("3DP") technology. The planned products will deliver quality-of-life improvements versus existing, approved orphan drugs, and will achieve this by utilizing Aprecia's proprietary 3DP ZipDose® Technology platform. ZipDose® is the only three-dimensional printing technology used in a pharmaceutical drug product approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Antonio Benedetti, CEO of Cycle commented: "Many rare disease patients do not have a treatment option at all. For those rare diseases where there is an approved pharmaceutical treatment, patients continue to be burdened by sub-optimal drug formulations. Aprecia's ZipDose® 3DP technology can formulate fast-melt pharmaceutical products, incorporating significantly higher amounts of active pharmaceutical ingredient than any other fast-melt technology on the market. As such, this advanced technology can uniquely overcome both pill burden and dysphagia – swallowing difficulties – both of which are life-long, daily issues for so many rare disease patients."

"We are excited to work with the Cycle team, and we see important synergies in the companies' shared mission to address unmet needs in patient care," said Don Wetherhold, CEO of Aprecia. "Cycle specializes in orphan drugs - they have proven that they can deliver quality-of-life improvements to rare disease patients around the world. Aprecia is fully committed to applying its ZipDose® 3DP printing technology to address real-world, daily issues faced by rare disease patients," he continued.

About Aprecia
Aprecia, The 3DP Pharmaceutical Company, expects to use its ZipDose® Technology to transform the way people take medicine. Its first innovation, ZipDose Technology can be combined with a wide variety of active pharmaceutical ingredients to create rapidly disintegrating oral dosage forms that are easy to take and easy to administer. Aprecia is committed to enhancing the patient experience through novel approaches to drug delivery that address unmet treatment needs to eliminate patient suffering and caregiver burden. For further information, please visit www.aprecia.com.

About Cycle Pharmaceuticals
Cycle Pharmaceuticals is a Cambridge-based pharmaceutical company that optimizes and increases access to existing pharmaceuticals. Specifically, Cycle focuses on three areas of pharmaceutical development:

Improving orphan drugs, which treat the under-served rare disease patient community;
Reinstating drug products that have been previously marketed;
Working with our academic and other partners to extend pharmaceuticals to new medical areas where there is clear unmet need.

Cycle's first orphan drug product, NITYR (nitisinone) tablets, is approved in the U.S. and Canada for the treatment of hereditary tyrosinemia type-1.

For further information, please visit www.cyclepharma.com.

SOURCE Aprecia