New nebulizer feature drives sales – and results
ISAB’s new nebulizer feature delivers the stability, precision and control of a dry powder aerosol—from a liquid solution. Developed by popular demand, four nebulizer modules have already been sold since its launch. In October ISAB published a new Paper detailing how the new feature improves airway and peripheral lung deposition.
“‘Wet or dry aerosol?’ isn’t really the question” says ISAB CSO Assoc Prof Per Gerde “‘Precise or not?’ is what’s most important for drug developers. Many asked us to design this feature to give them the precision of PreciseInhale®, but still let them work with nebulizers. Sometimes they have substances that are water-soluble, sometimes a biologic molecule—but either way formulating a dry powder is a huge effort—so the new nebulizer solves the problem. It was developed by popular demand. “
NEW PAPER: INCREASED AIRWAY DEPOSITION, IMPROVED PERIPHERAL LUNG DEPOSITION
ISAB’s new paper on the feature is “Adapting the Aerogen Mesh Nebulizer for Dried Aerosol Exposures Using the PreciseInhale® Platform”. It gives detailed data on the set-up and results. Overall it found that using the Aerogen nebulizer connected to the bench-top PreciseInhale® system gave two major advantages:
- Greatly increased yield of substance dosed to the airways
- Improved peripheral lung deposition of test aerosols due to reduced aerosol particle sizes through drying
“The reduction in particle size that comes with drying can dramatically increase the peripheral lung deposition and the small airway exposures” says Gerde “we focussed on using one nebulizer – the Aerogen mesh nebulizer – because it is very flexible, widely used and very easy to handle. We have completely integrated it into our system, so users can set and control the dose from the nebulizer accurately, digitally, onscreen, as one of the standard aerosol generation methods of PreciseInhale®.”
LOW WASTE; LOW CONSUMPTION
Another benefit, Gerde points out, is that biologics being tested as solutions are often expensive. PreciseInhale®’s low substance consumption means a minimum of substance is wasted. “Because with PreciseInhale® we’re able to control the output from the nebulizers we don’t lose much of the often precious test substance” Gerde says “we have a very good exposure yield, and avoid waste by pulsing the nebulizer operation, so reducing the output by more than 90%.”
“Dry powders are far more stable,” Gerde says, “and liquid solutions with a short shelf-life can end up like bacterial stews before you know it. Then again nebulizers are easy to use. But whether the drug you’re developing is wet or dry, you’re still going to need the most precise, accurate, predictive data you can get on it, early on. That’s always going to be critical. It’s not just about powder or solution. It’s about precision. That’s always what counts most.”
