LONDON - Quadrant Healthcare plc formed a 50-50 joint venture with MicroDose Technologies Inc. to develop systems for the pulmonary delivery of peptides and proteins. As part of the deal, Quadrant has invested US$2 million in MicroDose.

The subsidiary, called Qdose, will be based at Quadrant's facilities in Nottingham, UK, though the work will proceed in the U.S. and the UK. It initially will focus on a pulmonary format for insulin, combining Quadrant's formulation and particle engineering technologies with MicroDose's dry-powder inhaler and filling capabilities.

Raj Uppal, Quadrant financial director, told BioWorld International, "We are pleased to have set up the joint venture and to have been able to invest in MicroDose. We wanted to cement the relationship with an equity investment."

MicroDose, of Monmouth Junction, N.J., has two technologies available to the joint venture: a handheld, breath-activated dry powder inhaler system, and an electrostatic deposition system, which enables the accurate and repeatable packaging of microgram-to-milligram quantities of powdered drugs for use with the inhaler.

Uppal said Quadrant has devised three dry-powder formulations of insulin, which it has tested in four inhalers, with the MicroDose device giving the best results. The aim is to begin clinical trials of this route of administration by the end of next year.

Uppal noted that MicroDose has other technologies, which although outside the scope of the joint venture, are of potential interest to Quadrant.

Qdose is Quadrant's second joint venture. In June it formed a company with Elan Corp. of Dublin, Ireland, to work on the oral and parenteral delivery of macromolecules.