(80e) Application of Pollen-Shape Carrier Particles in Dry Powder Formulation Blends

Dry powder inhalation continues to be the demanding measure of drug administration in pharmaceutical industry. The number of asthma and chronic obstructive disease incidents are rising and the improvement of the therapies remains the main concern for the treatment. Generally, dry powder formulations are comprised of the micronized drug particles and coarse carrier particles in a blend form. It is believed that different physical aspects of carrier particles are important in improving the drug delivery efficiency. It is better for the carrier particles to have high drug loading efficiency, better aerosolization and deposition properties. In this study, carrier particle morphology is investigated to produce improved delivery efficiency of dry powder formulation. Pollen-shape hydroxyapatite(HA) particles are synthesized with a size range 25-50 µm with distinct surface morphologies. A common asthma drug Budesonide (Bd) with a size range less than 3 µm is blended with the model carrier particles at carrier to drug wt ratio of 2:1, 10:1 and 50:1. The content uniformity and drug attachment efficiency of each blend is examined by analyzing the quantity of Bd in the blend. In vitro aerosolization and deposition behavior of the blends are studied using an Andersen cascade impactor coupled with a Rotahaler at 30 and 60 liter/min. The performance of the pollen-shape carries are compared with traditional lactose (LA) carriers. Characterization of the blends showed that pollen-shape carrier particles produced well homogeneous blends with high drug loading capacity compare to the blends with LA carriers. For instance, when mixed at 10:1 w/w (carrier: drug) ratio, drug concentration in the HA blends after sieving is 6.51-7.90% where the drug concentration in the LA blends is 3.73%. The HA blends show high emitted dose (ED) of 82?90% at 30 L/min while the LA blends are observed to have ED of 69?82% at the same conditions. The high emission of the HA blends also allows high fine particle fraction (FPF) of 10?18% while the FPF of the LA blends are 3?15%. At a gas flow rate of 60 L/min, all the HA blends show better ED (83?95% for HA and 82?84% for LA) and compatible FPF (19?41% for HA and 21?34% for LA) against the LA blends. The findings of this study indicate the potential of pollen-shape carrier particles in the improvement of dry powder formulation efficiency.