Development and verification of mechanistic vaginal absorption and metabolism model to predict systemic exposure after vaginal ring and gel application

Aims The current work describes the development of mechanistic vaginal absorption and metabolism model within Simcyp Simulator to predict systemic concentrations following vaginal application of ring and gel formulations. Methods Vaginal and cervix physiology parameters were incorporated in the model development. The study highlights the model assumptions including simulation results comparing systemic concentrations of 5 different compounds, namely, dapivirine, tenofovir, lidocaine, ethinylestradiol and etonogestrel, administered as vaginal ring or gel. Due to lack of data, the vaginal absorption parameters were calculated based on assumptions or optimized. The model uses release rate/in vitro release profiles with formulation characteristics to predict drug mass transfer across vaginal tissue into the systemic circulation. Results For lidocaine and tenofovir vaginal gel, the predicted to observed AUC 0‐t and C max ratios were well within 2‐fold error limits. The average fold error (AFE) and absolute AFE indicating bias and precision of predictions range from 0.62 to 1.61. For dapivirine, the pharmacokinetic parameters are under and overpredicted in some studies due to lack of formulation composition details and relevance of release rate used in ring model. The predicted to observed AUC 0‐t and C max ratios were well within 2‐fold error limits for etonogestrel and ethinylestradiol vaginal ring (AFEs and absolute AFEs from 0.84 to 1.83). Conclusion The current study provides first of its kind physiologically based pharmacokinetic framework integrating physiology, population and formulation data to carry out in silico mechanistic vaginal absorption studies, with the potential for virtual bioequivalence assessment in the future.