Vaginal ring

Claim 2

A composite vaginal ring containing a safe and effective amount of a pharmaceutically active medicament, consisting essentially of: (a) a supporting, medicament-free vaginal ring consisting essentially of a physiologically acceptable synthetic resin and having a continuous encircling pocket-like indentation along the inner edge of the annular surface along the central plane thereof adapted to mate with a corresponding smaller, medicament-containing inner encircling annular minor vaginal ring segment; and (b) a smaller, vaginal medicament-containing inner encircling annular minor vaginal ring adapted to mate with the continuous encircling pocket-like indentation in the modified annular surface of said supporting, medicament-free vaginal ring along the central plane thereof and consisting essentially of a safe and effective amount of a pharmaceutically active nonionic, lipophilic vaginal drug dissolved or uniformly suspended in an elastomeric, crosslinked LTV linear dimethylpolysiloxane resin.

Claim 3

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein said minor ring segment is vulcanized onto said major supporting ring.

Claim 4

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein said LTV resin component consists essentially of a nontoxic pharmaceutical composition adapted for implantation into a human or animal body to provide a constant, uniform drug release rate over a time interval of several months or years, being substantially free of peroxide, acetic acid and metal salts of carboxylic acids and consisting essentially of a homogeneous mixture of: (a) 85-95, preferably 89-91, parts by weight of an LTV linear dimethylpolysiloxane resin containing 0.05-0.5 molar percent of methylvinylsiloxane units, having a molecular weight of 20,000-50,000 and containing an average of 1.58-2.02 monovalent hydrocarbon residues per silicone atom; (b) correspondingly 15-5, preferably 11-9, parts by weight of a cross-linking composition consisting essentially of a dimethylpolysiloxane cross-linking agent substantially free of methylvinylsiloxane units, having a molecular weight of 500-1000 and containing 1-3 Si--H bonds per molecule; (c) a catalytic amount of a noble-metal based cross-linking catalyst; and (d) a pharmaceutically active amount of a nonionic, lipophilic drug dissolved or uniformly suspended in said composition.

Claim 5

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein said LTV resin component consists essentially of preferably 85-89 parts by weight of component (a) preferably 5-6 parts by weight of component (b); together with 5-10 parts by weight of a dimethylpolysiloxane resin having a molecular weight of 10,000-40,000 and having 0.2-1.5 molar percent methylvinylsiloxane units as an auxiliary cross-linking agent.

Claim 6

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein said LTV resin component consists essentially of (a) 20-100 parts by weight of an organopolysiloxane having a viscosity of 500-200,000 centistokes (at 25° C.) and having the general formula ##STR2## wherein R is lower alkyl (preferably methyl) and/or aryl of up to 10 carbon atoms, and n is an integer from 200-1600; (b) 0-50 parts by weight of an organopolysiloxane copolymer consisting essentially of: (i) (R') 3 SiO 0 .5 units, (ii) (R') 2 (Vi)SiO 0 .5 units, and (iii) SiO 2 units, wherein Vi is a vinyl group and R' is a monovalent organic residue which does not contain any unsaturated groups, and at least 50% of R' is methyl, and wherein the ratio of a+b/c is 0.4-1.5 (preferably 0.6-1.0) and the ratio of b/c is 0.02-0.5 (preferably 0.05-0.15); (c) 5-15 parts by weight of an organohydrogen polysiloxane of the general formula R".sub.a H.sub.b SiO.sub.(4-a-b/2) wherein R" is a monovalent organic residue which has no unsaturated groups, a and b are each positive numbers; the ratio of a:b is 0.5-10 (preferably 1.0-5); the sum of a+b is 1-2.5; and wherein at least three hydrogen atoms bound to different Si atoms are present per molecule; which component contain 50-500 molar percent, based on the unsaturated end groups in components (a) and (b) of vinyl groups attached to SiH; and (d) a catalytic amount of platinum or a platinum compound.

Claim 7

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein said major supporting ring is composed of an elastomeric, cross-linked LTV linear dimethylpolysiloxane resin.

Claim 8

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein said drug is a steroid hormone.

Claim 9

A vaginal ring according to claim 8, wherein said drug is at least one steroid hormone having progestational or estrogenic activity.

Claim 10

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein the major supporting ring is a closed-cell foam.

Claim 11

A vaginal ring according to claim 10, wherein said major supporting ring is composed of an elastomeric, cross-linked LTV linear dimethylpolysiloxane resin.

Claim 12

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein said drug is an antiprotozoal medicament.

Claim 13

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein the exposed portion of said minor ring segment is circular in cross-section.

Claim 14

A vaginal ring according to claim 12, wherein the entire minor ring segment is circular in cross-section.

Claim 15

A vaginal ring according to claim 1, wherein supporting, medicament-free ring (a) also has a continuous encircling pocket-like indentation along the outer edge of the annular surface along the central plane thereof adapted to mate with a corresponding smaller, medicament-containing outer encircling annular minor vaginal ring segment; and which also contains (c) a smaller, vaginal medicament-containing outer encircling annular minor vaginal ring adapted to mate with the continuous encircling pocket-like indentation in the modified outer annular surface of said supporting, medicament-free vaginal ring along the central plane thereof and consisting essentially of a safe and effective amount of a pharmaceutically active nonionic, lipophilic vaginal drug dissolved or uniformly suspended in an elastomeric, crosslinked LTV linear dimethylpolysiloxane resin; whereby the composite ring contains both inner and outer minor ring segments along the central plane of said major supporting ring.

Claim 16

A vaginal ring according to claim 14, wherein one of said minor ring segments contains a progestationally active steroid drug and the other of said ring segments contains an estrogenically active steroid drug.

Claim 17

A vaginal ring according to claim 15, wherein the major supporting ring is a closed-cell foam composed of an elastomeric, cross-linked LTV linear dimethylpolysiloxane resin.

Claim 18

A vaginal ring according to claim 16 dimensioned for insertion into a human female vagina.

Claim 19

A vaginal ring according to claim 17 further comprising an antiprotozoal drug in a portion of at least one of said minor rings.

Claim 20

A vaginal ring according to claim 18, wherein the exposed portion of said minor ring segments are circular in cross-section.