German Merck has set up a new collaboration with U.K. medtech company Calla Lily Clinical Care to work on its next-generation intravaginal drug delivery approach.
London-based Calla Lily is working on several applications for its Callavid product, a tampon-shaped device that can be used as a drug delivery system for hormonal, oncological and other therapeutics.
The idea is for the device to move beyond vaginal pessaries, which are plastic or silicone devices that sit inside the vagina. Calla Lily said in a Feb. 10 statement that Callavid is a “transformational leak-resistant medical device,” which is designed like a tampon with an integrated absorbent liner.
In its first industry collaboration, Calla Lily is teaming up with Merck to help shore up the device’s drug delivery system.
Thang Vo-Ta, co-founder and CEO of Calla Lily, told Fierce that financial details and the therapeutic focus of the pact are “confidential at this stage […] but at the top-level, Merck will help advance the continued development of Callavid with both financial and strategic support.”
Vo-Ta added that the company’s device is set up to counter the “well-established flaws” of existing delivery methods. This includes “uncertainty around drug administration, accuracy, and correct positioning, as well as significant inconvenience requiring women to lie down for 30 minutes plus after each dose, multiple times a day for many weeks.”
Calla Lily is currently testing a drug-device combination to prevent threatened miscarriage and to support the luteal phase during in vitro fertilization.
