Assessment of pharmacokinetic compatibility of short acting CDRI candidate trioxane derivative, 99–411, with long acting prescription antimalarials, lumefantrine and piperaquine

The pharmacokinetic compatibility of short-acting CDRI candidate antimalarial trioxane derivative, 99-411, was tested with long-acting prescription antimalarials, lumefantrine and piperaquine. LC-ESI-MS/MS methods were validated for simultaneous bioanalysis of lumefantrine and 99-411 and of piperaquine and 99-411 combinations. The interaction studies were performed in rats using these validated methods. The total systemic exposure of 99-411 increased when administered with either lumefantrine or piperaquine. However, co-administration of 99-411 significantly decreased the systemic exposure of piperaquine by half-fold while it had no effect on the kinetics of lumefantrine. 99-411, thus, seemed to be a good alternative to artemisinin derivatives for combination treatment with lumefantrine. To explore the reason for increased plasma levels of 99-411, an in situ permeability study was performed by co-perfusing lumefantrine and 99-411. In presence of lumefantrine, the absorption of 99-411 was significantly increased by 1.37 times than when given alone. Lumefantrine did not affect the metabolism of 99-411 when tested in vitro in human liver microsomes. Additionally, ATPase assay suggest that 99-411 was a substrate of human P-gp, thus, indicating the probability of interaction at the absorption level in humans as well.