Virtual population pharmacokinetic using physiologically based pharmacokinetic model for evaluating bioequivalence of oral lacidipine formulations in dogs

The aim of the present study was to investigate virtual population pharmacokinetic using physiologically based pharmacokinetic (PBPK) model for evaluating bioequivalence of oral lacidipine formulations in dogs. The dissolution behaviors of three lacidipine formulations including one commercial product and two self-made amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) capsules were determined in 0.07% Tween 80 media. A randomized 3-period crossover design in 6 healthy beagle dogs after oral administration of the three formulations at a single dose of 4 mg was conducted. The PBPK modeling was utilized for the virtual bioequivalence study. In vitro dissolution experiment showed that the dissolution behaviors of lacidipine amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) capsules, which was respectively prepared by HPMC-E5 or Soluplus, as polymer displayed similar curves compared with the reference formulation in 0.07% Tween 80 media. In vivo pharmacokinetics experiments showed that three formulations had comparable maximum plasma drug concentration (C(max)), and the time (T(max)) to reach C(max) of lacidipine tablet, which was prepared by Soluplus, as polymer was slower than other two formulations in consistency with the in vitro dissolution rate. The 90% confidence interval (CI) for the C(max), AUC(0–24 h) and AUC(0–∞) of the ratio of the test drug to the referencedrug exceeded the acceptable bioequivalence (BE) limits (0.80–1.25). However, the 90% CI of the AUC(0–24 h), AUC(0–∞) and C(max) of the ratio of test to reference drug were within the BE limit, calculated using PBPK modeling when the virtual subjects reached 24 dogs. The results all demonstrated that virtual bioequivalence study can overcome the inequivalence caused by inter-subject variability of the 6 beagle dogs involved in in vivo experiments.