PDDS™, Acusphere's Pulmonary Drug Delivery System
Broad Applications for Sustained Release in the Lung.
A sustained release delivery system for drugs delivered locally to the lung would be desirable for the treatment of respiratory disease. Relative to systemic drug delivery by the oral or injectable routes, local delivery of respiratory drugs by the pulmonary route allows smaller doses of the drug and minimizes systemic toxicity because the drug can be delivered directly to the site of the disease. Moreover, sustained release of respiratory drugs may offer significant clinical benefit to millions of respiratory patients, including a growing percentage of pediatric patients, by allowing them to take treatments for such diseases as asthma less frequently, and to receive more prolonged and steadier relief. We believe sustained delivery of drugs to the lung also offers the potential for improved safety, by moderating the drug peaks and troughs of immediate release drugs, which can cause added toxicity or reduced efficacy. Our initial development efforts have focused on developing sustained release formulations of asthma drugs.
Current pulmonary delivery systems are not optimal, delivering inaccurate doses, requiring frequent dosing and losing significant amounts of drug in the delivery process. Most asthma drugs delivered by inhalation are immediate release formulations that must be inhaled multiple times per day, which discourages patient compliance. When patients forget to take their medicine during the day, they may experience complications which may result in increased emergency room visits and hospitalizations. In a recent study, two thirds of all asthma patients did not take their medications as directed. In addition, immediate release formulations often deliver drug levels that peak and trough, causing undesirable toxicity or inadequate efficacy.
By controlling particle size, particle porosity and thus density, and particle composition, and therefore the aerodynamic properties of a particle, our PDDS™ technology controls where drug particles go in the lung and how quickly they release the drug. This tight control of release rate, and targeting within the lungs, may enable our PDDS™ technology to address many of the hurdles of sustained release pulmonary delivery.
AI-128™, is an improved formulation of an asthma drug and Acusphere's initial clinical application of PDDS™ technology.