Mucosa-mimetic materials to replace animal tissue in mucoadhesion research

Pharmaceutical scientists often wish to design dosage forms which adhere to mucosal membranes to provide a localised effect. These “mucoadhesive” formulations are typically evaluated using ex vivo animal tissue, a large amount of which is sourced from laboratory animals slaughtered for that tissue . The authors aim to produce a synthetic alternative to this tissue, which frees scientists from the need to use laboratory animals and provides a substrate which is inexpensive and homogenous. A substrate containing 20 mol% N-acryloylglucosamine (AGA) and 80 mol% 2- hydroxyethylmethacrylate (HEMA) was identified as being an effective mimic for buccal mucosa when testing the mucoadhesion of tablets. This study investigates the efficacy of this “mucosa-mimetic” material when testing for the mucoadhesion of liquid and semi-solid dosage forms.