Discovery & Development Europe 2025: Formulation & Drug Delivery Congress
July 1-2, 2025
Basel, Switzerland

Invited lecture:
Oral Delivery Of Peptide And Protein Drugs – Oral Delivery of GLP-1 Analogues

Prof. Dr. A. Bernkop-Schnürch
more...

8th European Cyclodextrin Conference
September 9-12, 2025
Milano, Italy

Invited lecture:
Thiolated Cyclodextrins in Drug Delivery

Prof. Dr. A. Bernkop-Schnürch
more...

Vaginal Drug Delivery Systems

The vagina offers numerous advantages as a site for drug delivery, such as easy access, prolonged retention of formulations, a great permeation area, high vascularisation, relative low enzymatic activity and the avoidance of first-pass metabolism. Vaginal administration of drugs, which are specifically used for the treatment of e.g. osteoporosis, hormone replacement therapy, contraception, infections, infertility and other female related conditions, is a feasible alternative to oral or parenteral administration. Due to the use of mucoadhesive polymers such as thiomers the intravaginal retention time of drug delivery systems can be significantly improved. Consequently the therapeutic efficacy of also locally acting drugs can be improved by their prolonged availability at the target membrane [Bernkop-Schnürch A. and Hornof M. (2003) Intravaginal drug delivery: design, challenges and solutions, Am.. J. Drug Deliv., 1, 241-254]. ThioMatrix is specialized on:

• vaginal permeation studies
  
  
• evaluation of the influence of permeation enhancers
  
  
• vaginal mucoadhesion in studies
  
  
• drug degradation on the vaginal mucosa
  
  
• design and optimisation of vaginal drug delivery systems
  
  
• in vivo studies
  
  

Our recent publications in this field:

Nowak J, Laffleur F, Bernkop-Schnürch A. Preactivated hyaluronic acid: A potential mucoadhesive polymer for vaginal delivery.  Int J Pharm. 2014 Nov 24;478(1):383-389.
Hintzen F, Hauptstein S, Perera G, Bernkop-Schnürch A. Synthesis and in vitro characterization of entirely S-protected thiolated pectin for drug delivery. Eur J Pharm Biopharm. 2013 Nov;85(3 Pt B):1266-73.
Friedl HE, Dünnhaupt S, Waldner C, Bernkop-Schnürch A. Preactivated thiomers for vaginal drug delivery vehicles. Biomaterials. 2013 Oct;34(32):7811-8.
Baloglu E, Ay Senyıgıt Z, Karavana SY, Vetter A, Metın DY, Hilmioglu Polat S, Guneri T, Bernkop-Schnürch A. In vitro evaluation of mucoadhesive vaginal tablets of antifungal drugs prepared with thiolated polymer and development of a new dissolution technique for vaginal formulations. Chem Pharm Bull (Tokyo). 2011;59(8):952-8.
Vetter A, Perera G, Leithner K, Klima G, Bernkop-Schnürch A. Development and in vivo bioavailability study of an oral fondaparinux delivery system.  Eur J Pharm Sci. 2010 Nov 20;41(3-4):489-97.
Baloglu E, Senyigit ZA, Karavana SY, Bernkop-Schnürch A. Strategies to prolong the intravaginal residence time of drug delivery systems.  J Pharm Pharm Sci. 2009;12(3):312-36. Review.
Hombach J, Palmberger TF, Bernkop-Schnürch A. Development and in vitro evaluation of a mucoadhesive vaginal delivery system for nystatin. J Pharm Sci. 2009 Feb;98(2):555-64.

Download a brochure

Thiomatrix joined the EU-project TENTACLE (101191747) focusing on the use of thiomers for in situ bioprinting.
more....