International Journal of Pharmacology (IJP) is published by IMR Press from Volume 21 Issue 4 (2025). Previous articles were published by another publisher under the CC-BY licence, and they are hosted by IMR Press on imrpress.com as a courtesy and upon agreement.
Phase I Study of the Novel Antifungal Agent Dapaconazole (Zilt®) in Healthy Volunteers
1 Institute of Biophysics Carlos Chagas Filho/UFRJ, CCS-Bloco G, 21949-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil
2 Galeno Research Unit, Latino Coelho St., 1301, Parquel Taquaral, 13087-010, Campinas, SP, Brazil
3 Faculty of Medical Sciences, State University of Campinas-UNICAMP, P.O. Box 6111, Campinas, SP, Brazil
4 Department of Pharmacology, ICB-USP, 05508-900, Sao Paulo, SP, Brazil
Abstract
The study aims to evaluate the tolerability of multiple-dose topical dapaconazole tosylate, a new imidazole antifungal drug, in healthy volunteers. Twenty-four healthy volunteers (12 men) with skin pigmentation classified as I-III in the Fitzpatrick scale enrolled in this open-label, two-treatment study with daily application of 40 mg of dapaconazole for 14 consecutive days. Drug application was monitored by a physician and photographs were taken before and 1 h after application to evaluate possible dermatological reactions. Medical evaluations including physical examination, laboratory tests and electrocardiograms were performed to evaluate possible systemic adverse events. To evaluate systemic dapaconazole absorption blood samples were collected before and 2, 4 and 6 h after products application on the first day of treatment. The same occurred in days 7 and 13, but an extra 24 h sample was collected after application of the products. Dapaconazole plasma levels were measured by high-performance liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry. No volunteers had dermatological reactions to the formulations. Only one blood sample had detectable levels of dapaconazole (0.23 ng mL-1). One volunteer presented hypertriglyceridemia (424 mg dL-1) after the 14 days of treatment. Three months after the last dose triglycerides were back to normal range (151 mg dL-1). Dapaconazole 2% (Zilt®) showed a safe adverse event profile for topical application in daily doses of 40 mg for up to 14 days in healthy individuals.
Keywords
- Pharmacokinetics
- skin
- bioavailability
- topical imidazole
