DrugLib.com — Drug Information Portal

Rx drug information, pharmaceutical research, clinical trials, news, and more

Active ingredient: Micafungin - Brands, Medical Use, Clinical Data

Brands, Medical Use, Clinical Data

Drug Category

  • Antifungals

Dosage Forms

  • Powder for solution (for injection)

Brands / Synonyms

Mycamine; Mycamine

Indications

For use in the treatment of patients with esophageal candidiasis and prophylaxis of Candida infections in patients undergoing hematopoietic stem cell transplantation.

Pharmacology

Formerly known as FK463, micafungin is a novel antifungal agent. It is a glucan synthesis inhibitor of the echinocandin structural class. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved micafungin in March 2005. Micafungin inhibits an enzyme essential for fungal cell-wall synthesis and is fungicidal (lethal) for Candida. Micafungin can be used concomitantly with a variety of other drugs, including the HIV protease inhibitor ritonavir and the transplant medications cyclosporine and tacrolimus.

Mechanism of Action

Micafungin inhibits the synthesis of 1,3-b-D-glucan, an essential component of fungal cell walls, which is not present in mammalian cells.

Absorption

Not Available

Toxicity

Intravenous LD50 in rats is 125mg/kg. In dogs it is >200mg/kg. No cases of overdosage have been reported. Repeated daily doses up to 8 mg/kg (maximum total dose of 896 mg) in adult patients have been administered in clinical trials with no reported dose-limiting toxicity. The minimum lethal dose is 125 mg/kg in rats, equivalent to 8.1 times the recommended human clinical dose for esophageal candidiasis based on body surface area comparisons.

Biotrnasformation / Drug Metabolism

Micafungin is metabolized to M-1 (catechol form) by arylsulfatase, with further metabolism to M-2 (methoxy form) by catechol-O-methyltransferase. M-5 is formed by hydroxylation at the side chain (w-1 position) of micafungin catalyzed by cytochrome P450 (CYP) isozymes. Even though micafungin is a substrate for and a weak inhibitor of CYP3A in vitro, hydroxylation by CYP3A is not a major pathway for micafungin metabolism in vivo.

Contraindications

MYCAMINE is contraindicated in patients with hypersensitivity to any component of this product.

Drug Interactions

A total of 11 clinical drug-drug interaction studies were conducted in healthy volunteers to evaluate the potential for interaction between MYCAMINE and mycophenolate mofetil, cyclosporine, tacrolimus, prednisolone, sirolimus, nifedipine, fluconazole, ritonavir, and rifampin. In these studies, no interaction that altered the pharmacokinetics of micafungin was observed.

There was no effect of a single dose or multiple doses of MYCAMINE on mycophenolate mofetil, cyclosporine, tacrolimus, prednisolone, and fluconazole pharmacokinetics.

Sirolimus AUC was increased by 21% with no effect on Cmax in the presence of steady-state MYCAMINE compared with sirolimus alone. Nifedipine AUC and Cmax were increased by 18% and 42%, respectively, in the presence of steady-state MYCAMINE compared with nifedipine alone. Patients receiving sirolimus or nifedipine in combination with MYCAMINE should be monitored for sirolimus or nifedipine toxicity and sirolimus or nifedipine dosage should be reduced if necessary.

Micafungin is not an inhibitor of P-glycoprotein and, therefore, would not be expected to alter P-glycoprotein-mediated drug transport activity.

 

-- advertisement -- The American Red Cross
 
Home | About Us | Contact Us | Site usage policy | Privacy policy

All Rights reserved - Copyright DrugLib.com, 2006-2017