The development of the world’s first lung biosimulator device to investigate orally inhaled products (OIPs) under deep lung conditions – A proof of concept project.

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

Thelungs are an excellent way of delivering pharmaceutical drugs into the body to treatvarious diseases. This is because they have a large surface area, are moist and have a goodblood supply. Unlike tablet medicines, which are often slowly absorbed in the gut and thenprocessed by the liver before they can have their effect, inhaled drugs are absorbed morerapidly and exert their effects quicker. Consequently, inhaled drugs are often in smaller dosesthan oral forms, give fewer side-effects and likely to have a quicker onset of action, which canlead to better control of disease symptoms and improved patient outcomes.When pharmaceutical companies are developing inhaled drugs, for example for asthma, theyare mainly concerned with getting small-sized drug particles to reach the deepest parts of thelung where it is assumed that the particles are absorbed into the body. However, little isknown about the way the drug interacts with the lung fluids. This is important to know as thelung fluids are the initial point of contact for the drugs delivered by the inhaled route and themedia in which the drug dissolves/is released. Clearly, it is crucial to understand theinteraction between pharmaceutical drugs and the lung fluids so that drug release mechanismscan be understood. There is currently no technology available to simulate the environment ofthe deep lung so that these types of interactions can be researched.Pulmorphix is in the process of developing an innovative technology which replicates lungconditions. The objective of this research is to set up ways in which we can investigate howinhaled drugs interact with lung fluids in an environment which closely resembles that of thedeep lung. This information is of value to scientists designing inhaled drugs as theinformation generated by this technology will help them develop improved drug formulations -which will ultimately improve patient quality of life (e.g. for individuals with asthma ordiabetes).