Optimised Inhaled Therapies

Inhalation can offer significant advantages over alternative routes of administration, and can be used to treat respiratory conditions (e.g. COPD, Asthma, respiratory infections), as well as to target rapid systemic uptake and avoid first pass metabolism. The development of medicines with efficient delivery to the lung can prove challenging, however, with the benefits provided by accessing the large surface area of the alveoli and opportunities to develop non-invasive treatments with reduced dose and fewer side effects, pulmonary delivery remains a highly attractive option for many therapeutics.

There are several factors to consider when developing inhaled therapies. These include Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) properties (e.g. particle size, shape and surface properties, propensity to agglomerate and solid-state purity), product formulation (e.g. carriers, lubricants) and inhaler device (e.g. dry powder, metered dose).

Crystec’s mSAS® (modified supercritical anti-solvent) technology provides a range of strategies for the development of inhaled therapies, optimising particle properties to enable simple formulations to be rapidly developed and administered from readily available, off-the-shelf devices.