Making it easier and "greener" to manage your medication

Three Oaks Innovations Inc. is the commercialization arm of the University of Prince Edward Island (UPEI), an independent company whose mandate is to manage the transfer of UPEI technology and intellectual property to industry and help bring great ideas to market.

"It really has been an exciting year for innovation at UPEI," says Sophie Theriault, Managing Director of Three Oaks Innovations Inc. "There is always something new here. I work with university researchers who have developed technology that has potential in the marketplace, and I work with industries that are looking for technology in which to invest or license. Three Oaks Innovations helps bring some of those ideas and technologies into the marketplace. People are really starting to notice."

Dr. Michael Shaver, Professor in Green Materials Chemistry at UPEI, leads the biodegradable plastics project at Three Oaks Inc. Thanks to the addition of a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada (NSERC) Discovery Grant, he's at work developing a plastic delivery tool for the drug industry that will allow drugs to be administered over longer periods of time.

"NSERC, which is part of the Industry Portfolio, provided the foundational funding that is essential to do fundamental science," he states. "For any commercially relevant discovery, there's a lot of work to do, sometimes it happens quickly, sometimes it doesn't. This project has been in the works for five years, and we've finally been published, have our patents and are talking to commercial partners to bring it to market."

A "green" materials chemist, Dr. Shaver works to develop non-toxic alternatives to traditional plastics through the creation of non-toxic catalysts, eliminating solvents and preventing toxic waste release. His research also aims to replace petroleum-based products with renewable raw materials. NSERC funding has been pivotal to his work on this and other projects.

"When you take a pill, it will usually dissolve at a quick rate, dispensing the entire amount of the drug in it," he explains. "This new type of polymer, or plastic, that we're developing is built from a polymer star. It traps the drug inside it like a ball of yarn with a bunch of buttons inside. When that ball unwinds, the buttons will pop out and release the drug over time at the rate you need it."

When his project finally hits the marketplace, it could change the way people cope with their medical issues. This new product can fine-tune how fast the polymer will degrade and, therefore, when the drug is dispensed. "This could reduce the number of times you take medication," he explains. "For example, if you take five pills a day right now for a condition, with this development, that could be reduced to one pill a week that dispenses the medication as you need it. It can make dealing with medical problems a lot easier."