(694f) Inhalation Powder Development: How to Find a Compromise between Deep Lung Deposition and the Flowability Required for Capsule Filling

Pulmonary drug administration has long been used for local or systemic treatment due to several advantages. Dry powder inhalers emerge as the most promising due to efficiency, ecologic, and drug stability concerns. We developed “engineered-inhalation powders” using the spray-drying technique. Particle morphology, from spherical to deflated shapes, was characterized by the number and the depth of dimples measured from SEM images. We define a new characteristic deflation ratio ξ as the product between the number of dimples and their depth. We showed first that the morphology of inhalable powder can be finely tuned by spray-drying technique when excipients and process parrameter varied. Secondly, we developed stable inhalation powders that simultaneously induced high fine particle fractions (>50%) for two drugs (budesonide and formoterol) due to their deflated surface.

However, such inhalation powders introduces challenges related to cohesive forces playing an important role with small particle size. The second part of our study aims to find an easy industrial method for improving powder flow properties to facilitate the handling of these powders, especially in the context of capsules or reservoir filling. To achieve this, we focus on adhesive blends of micronized spray-dried powder, which includes budesonide and formoterol, with coarse lactose excipient. It is intended to develop a homogeneous blend without overly strong interparticular interactions that could potentially compromise the final pulmonary deposition of micronized powders.

Finally, we will show new methods based of soft-pelletization allowing to improve powder flow without the addition of lactose excipients.

References:

Inhalation powder development without carrier: How to engineer ultra-flying microparticles?, A. Lechanteur, E. Gresse, L. Orozco, E. Plougonven, A. Léonard, N. Vandewalle, G. Lumay & B. Evrard, Eur. J. of Pharm. and Biopharm. 191, 26 (2023)

Engineered-inhaled particles: Influence of carbohydrates excipients nature on powder properties and behavior, A. Lechanteur , E. Plougonven, L. Orozco, G. Lumay, N. Vandewalle, A. Léonard, & B. Evrard, Int. J. Pharm. 613, 121319 (2022)

Enhancement of inhaled micronized powder flow properties for accurate capsules filling, E. Gresse, J. Rousseau, M. Akdim, A. du Bois, A. Lechanteur & B. Evrard, Powder Technology 437, 119576 (2024)