Lexaria Bioscience Corp. has engaged a contract research organization to conduct Human Pilot Study #7, which will evaluate two oral DehydraTECH-semaglutide compositions against commercially available Wegovy tablets. The study represents a significant step in oral drug delivery innovation for GLP-1 medications, which are widely used for diabetes and weight management.
The five-week parallel group study will investigate three separate arms to assess safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetic properties. It will compare salcaprozate sodium-inclusive DHT-sema tablet and capsule formulations to Wegovy tablets under fasted pre-dose conditions. Lexaria aims to preserve the superior safety and tolerability profiles demonstrated in previous GLP-1 studies while achieving pharmacokinetic performance that matches or exceeds commercial oral tablet brands Rybelsus and Wegovy.
This study introduces several new DehydraTECH enhancements not previously evaluated. For the first time, Lexaria is using an oral tablet DHT-sema composition, as opposed to the capsule compositions included in all previous DHT GLP-1 studies. The company has attempted to mimic certain properties of the Rybelsus and Wegovy tablet delivery modality, which uses specially formulated tablets designed to temporarily adhere to the stomach lining and disintegrate in a focal manner that optimizes absorption.
Both the Lexaria DHT-sema tablet and capsule test articles will be formulated with SNAC, marking the first time these formulations are evaluated over a multi-dose, multi-week time period in humans. The five-week duration is expected to be sufficient to reach steady-state, when drug concentrations in the body reach a constant concentration. Earlier DHT-sema human pilot studies conducted in 2024 and 2025 that also used SNAC were limited by single-dose study designs of much shorter duration.
If successful, the study results will add to an existing data set aimed at generating interest from pharmaceutical partners seeking commercial relationships encompassing Lexaria's proprietary DehydraTECH technology. The technology improves how drugs enter the bloodstream through oral delivery and has demonstrated increased bio-absorption and reduced side-effects in previous research. For more information about the company's technology platform, visit https://www.lexariabioscience.com.
Contracts with the CRO have been signed, and submissions are being prepared to obtain required ethics approval from an independent review board. The study is fully funded from existing corporate resources. Lexaria will update stakeholders once ethics board approval has been achieved, at which time patient recruitment can begin. The original release announcing this study can be viewed at https://www.newmediawire.com.
