Skin is complex. The nature of the molecules that comprise the skin, and their structure are such that we can predict neither how a given drug will pass through the skin nor the degree to which a given MPE^™ might affect its permeability. We need to obtain such data by doing experiments. Such experiments, though, are traditionally slow and costly.

High throughput experimentation ("HTE")^[2,3] enables more measurements to be made, in a shorter time frame, and usually at a reduced per-measurement cost. Nuvo has pioneered HTE approaches to skin property measurement and now operates, in ‘production mode’, a number of proprietary HTE platforms, including INSIGHT^™, STORM^™ and TEMPEST^™.

With INSIGHT^™ we measure how formulations, typically containing various MPE^™ cocktails, affect the skin barrier^[4-6]. INSIGHT^™ increases the rate at which promising MPE^™ cocktails can be identified by some 100-fold relative to conventional experiments. With INSIGHT^™ Nuvo has created an experimental database of over 500,000 MPE^™ cocktails, an achievement that would have taken a number of years to complete using traditional screening methods. It is within this database that Nuvo has discovered MMPE^™s, those MPE^™ combinations that work synergistically to enhance transdermal penetration of a given drug.

With STORM^™ we measure the dynamics of the effect of formulations on the skin barrier, from about a second after the formulation contacts the skin^[7].

With TEMPEST^™ we measure how formulations affect the overall rate at which a given drug permeates through the skin^[7,8].

Each of the INSIGHT^™, STORM^™ and TEMPEST^™ platforms has been calibrated against conventional data, either from the literature or as measured internally. These proprietary HTE screening platforms allow our team of scientists at fqubed to make many more experiments on skin, and hence more discoveries, than the research functions of even large pharmaceutical companies; patents are pending on novel compositions discovered using these proprietary HTE platforms. We also have an active program of technology development, directed both to continued improvements of our current HTE platforms as well as to the innovation of new HTE approaches.

Nuvo Approach using HTE Technology