The pharmacokinetics of mavacoxib, a long-acting COX-2 inhibitor, in young adult laboratory dogs

Cox, S.R., Lesman, S.P., Boucher, J.F., Krautmann, M.J., Hummel, B.D., Savides, M., Marsh, S., Fielder, A., Stegemann, M.R. The pharmacokinetics of mavacoxib, a long-acting COX-2 inhibitor, in young adult laboratory dogs. J. vet. Pharmacol. Therap. 33, 461–470. The pharmacokinetics of mavacoxib were evaluated in an absolute bioavailability study, a dose-proportionality study and a multi-dose study in young healthy adult laboratory Beagle dogs and in a multi-dose safety study in Beagle-sized laboratory Mongrel dogs. When administered as the commercial tablet formulation at 4 mg/kg body weight (bw) to fasted dogs, the absolute bioavailability (F) of mavacoxib was 46.1%; F increased to 87.4% when mavacoxib was administered with food. Following intravenous administration, the total body plasma clearance of mavacoxib was 2.7 mL·h/kg, and the apparent volume of distribution at steady-state was 1.6 L/kg. The plasma protein binding of mavacoxib was approximately 98% in various in vitro and ex vivo studies. The dose-normalized area under the plasma concentration–time curve was similar in Beagle and Beagle-sized Mongrel dogs when mavacoxib was administered with food. Mavacoxib exhibited dose-proportional pharmacokinetics for single oral doses of 2–12 mg/kg in Beagle dogs and for multiple oral doses of 5–25 mg/kg in Beagle-sized Mongrel dogs. Only minor accumulation occurred when mavacoxib was administered at doses of 2–25 mg/kg bw orally to laboratory dogs with a 2-week interval between the 1st two doses but with a monthly interval thereafter. Across all three Beagle studies (n = 63) the median terminal elimination half-life (t½) was 16.6 days, with individual values ranging 7.9–38.8 days. The prolonged t½ for mavacoxib supports the approved regimen in which doses are separated by 2–4 weeks.