Prof. Paolo Colombo, CEO of PlumeSTARS and Dr. Eride Quarta, Research Scientist of PlumeSTARS, attended the 5th International TB Meeting “Inhaled therapies for tuberculosis and other infectious diseases” in Groningen (The Netherlands) from 25 to 27 August 2019.
Prof. Paolo Colombo, as chairman, opened the First
Session on formulations and devices, saying that Integrating the tuberculosis systemic
drug administration with targeted loco-regional treatment improves the therapy
effectiveness. The congress proposal in this direction was to introduce the administration
of anti-bacterial drugs by inhalation as an adjunct to systemic therapy. This
strategy allows a direct attack to the Mycobacterium tuberculosis, i.e., the
disease responsible.
Pulmonary drug products, in particular the most
technologically advanced dry powders inhalers, imply a demanding pharma-tech
development, since numerous variables for controlling the deposition of drug
particles are involved. Bronchial or alveolar regions are the targets of TB
disease.
The powders
for inhalation are essentially formulated by crushing drug particles by milling
or by constructing ex novo microparticulate shapes. In general, in infective
lung diseases, the products present a high amount of powder to inhale for dose administration.
In addition, in TB, more than one drug has to be delivered at same time. This forces
the device technologies for metering, aerosolization and deposition to be strongly
innovative.
In summary, formulation and device for anti-TB
dry powder inhalation products are not simple combination products. Their
sophistication is essential to facing the interaction among product, patient
and microbial target. Local concentration of antibiotics, retention time and
compliance with daily dosing could also suggest compounding of prolonged
release formulations, using colloidal particles and controlling dissolution
rate using compatible safe polymers. Therefore, novel inhaled antibiotic
formulations, such as dry powder for inhalation, are promising as problem
solving drug composition.
Finally, also Dr. Eride Quarta,research scientist of PlumeStars and PhD student of Department of Food& Drug at Parma University, presented the research contribution“Microparticles embedding streptomycin sulfate and isoniazid albumin co-nanoparticles for dry powder inhalers”.