Corporate Overview

Enhancing Oral Bioavailability

Transporters play an important role in the absorption of nutrients from the diet. They take up complex organic molecules and also enable absorption of important drugs. XenoPort has identified several high-capacity transporter proteins that are highly expressed and capable of transporting large quantities of complex organic molecules.

Antibody Detection of a Transporter That Is
Highly Expressed in the Colon


We believe that building Transported Prodrugs™ that are recognized by high-capacity nutrient carriers enables us to make the following advances in the bioavailability of oral drugs:

  • Improve the efficiency and consistency of oral absorption.
  • Impart colonic absorption to those drugs that cannot be delivered via sustained-release dosage forms.
  • Potentially convert injectable drugs into oral forms.

"Our Transported Prodrug technology can greatly improve the bioavailability of poorly absorbed drugs by facilitating their absorption through completely different pathways. By shifting to high-capacity nutrient absorption pathways, we believe that we can reliably deliver more of the drug to the body and even reduce the variability between patients."

—Ken Cundy, Senior Vice President of Preclinical Development