AAPS PharmSci 360 2024: Developing Inhalation Drugs

The respiratory system is a complex organ that has specific implications to consider when developing drugs that are delivered through inhalation, according to Vivek Gupta, PhD, associate dean for Graduate Education and Research, associate professor, Pharmaceutical Sciences, St. John’s University, Queens, New York. One of the formulation considerations is the choice of excipients.

“When we talk about what kind of excipients can be used, and what impacts the choice of excipients, I think the primary thing that comes into mind is safety of those excipients. Because it's one thing for an excipient to be given orally, where it goes into the intestinal tract, gets delicate while it is traveling to the intestinal tract, and eventually into the bloodstream. Instead of that, when anything is given administered into the lungs, they tend to accumulate. They may or may not get metabolized, depending on what kind of environment, [the] kind of enzymes [needed] for metabolism, and they safety challenges [these excipients] pose. [Most] of the excipients that are used for inhaled dosage forms are more or less the same that have been approved for other routes of administrations as well. However, the quality of those excipients could be different.”

Click on the above video for a discussion with Dr. Gupta about the challenges of formulating inhalation drug products. Dr. Gupta will be providing an on-demand prologue discussion, Advances and Challenges in Inhaled Drug Product Development, for AAPS PharmSci 360 in 2024. AAPS PharmSci 360 is being held from October 20–23, 2024 in Salt Lake City, UT.