Promising Early Results For New High-Performance DPI

Due to the unique benefits of the pulmonary drug delivery route and Dry Powder Inhalers (DPIs) the DPI market is growing both in terms of market share and the number and types of therapies, moving beyond the traditional markets of asthma and COPD.

All DPIs currently on the market are ‘passive' DPIs, meaning that they are powered by the patient's inspiratory effort rather than using an additional power source such as a battery or compressed gas. Passive DPIs have been successful as they are generally cheaper and less complex than ‘active' DPIs.

However, passive DPIs have struggled to achieve consistent drug delivery performance. This is because, while the patient provides more than enough inspiratory power, it is difficult to effectively utilise this power to deliver the drug, resulting in wastage and inconsistent dosing.

Setting the New Standard for Dry Powder Inhalers

αeolus [ay-oh-luss] is a passive, high-performance, high-consistency dry powder inhaler platform concept that achieves a greater Fine Particle Fraction than that of comparator devices.

αeolus uses novel technologies intended to create a robust and high-performance DPI. This performance offers far-reaching potential benefits, most notably αeolus is designed to improve patient outcomes, reduce product cost, and increase the likelihood of success in clinical studies and in use. αeolus is being developed to be a true platform technology, forming the core DPI ‘engine' around which any number of DPIs in different formats (single dose disposable through to multi-dose) can be designed.

This report discusses some of the exciting benefits of the αeolus technology, and some of the preliminary performance data from early-stage development.