Particle & Device Engineering for Inhalation Drug Delivery

Particle & Device Engineering for Inhalation Drug Delivery
March 2004
Kavitha Koushik and Uday B. Kompella
Drug Delivery Technology
The inhalation route, employed primarily for drugs acting in the respiratory tract, is now being extended for systemic macromolecule delivery. Despite the long-term use of inhalation technologies for therapeutic purposes, there still is room for improvement in a number of areas, including deposition efficiency, targeting, and sustained release for inhaled drugs. These challenges can be addressed in part by particle and device engineering for inhalation delivery. Currently, several novel particle engineering methods, such as spray freeze drying into liquids, supercritical fluid technology, and crystal engineering, are being developed to overcome the limitations of the conventional methods of spray drying and jet milling. Different engineered particles, such as amorphous glass particles for protein stabilization, spray-dried oligosaccharides and large porous particles for sustained delivery, and nanocrystals for improved cellular penetration, are being developed. New dry powder and liquid aerosol inhalation devices, such as the Nektar DPI system, AERx? (Aradigm), Spiros? (Dura Pharmaceuticals), and the Respimat? (Boehringer Ingelheim) are improving the deposition efficiency, ease of use, or dose reproducibility.
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