News Update – Smokeable Drugs – New Drug Delivery Device

It has been long known that inhaled drugs are delivered into the bloodstream much quicker than with other drug delivery techniques. A new company, Alexza Pharmaceuticals

(Palo Alto, CA), has come up with a really novel method for inhaled delivery: their drug delivery device allows medical drugs to be smoked like cigarettes with therapeutic drug effects observed within seconds.

The device delivery system uses heat to quickly vaporize a solid drug, which is then cooled rapidly in the air and condensed to form pure drug aerosol particles to be inhaled by the patient. Upon inhaling, the drug is quickly absorbed through the lungs into the bloodstream at a speed comparable to intravenous administration, and achieves peak plasma levels of the drug in less than five minutes – much faster than oral administration.

To use this inhaler device, a patient simply removes an inhaler from its packaging, places the device to his or her lips, and takes a deep breath. Unlike many other inhalation technologies, the patient does not need to learn a special breathing pattern. In addition, the device is small and easily portable. It is comprised of a metal heating 'substrate' coated with a thin layer of a specific drug, and is activated simply by the patient putting the inhaler to their lips and taking a deep breath.

This technology can deliver both water-soluble and non-water soluble compounds, and removes the need for excipients and additives, allowing delivery of unformulated drug.

Alexza Pharmaceuticals has so far screened around 400 compounds for their suitability with the above delivery system, ranging from psychotherapeutics and anti-emetics to analgesics and antihistamines - as well as smoking cessation products.

The company has four candidates presently in clinical trials: a prochlorperazine product for acute treatment of migraine, an alprazolam product for acute treatment of panic attacks, a loxapine product for acute treatment of agitation for patients with schizophrenia and a product based on fentanyl for treatment of acute pain.

In December 2006 the company announced promising results from a Phase I clinical study for the fentanyl product, showing that the device delivered doses of the drug that had comparable pharmacokinetics to intravenous administration.

New drug delivery methods are of key interest in the pharmaceutical industry, with inhalable delivery showing up in inhalable flu vaccines, measles vaccines and pain treatments as well as inhalable in.

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