Controlling Drug Delivery Apparatus

Abstract

A drug package comprising a plurality of drug vials containing drugs for delivery to a patient in a drug delivery device; and a data carrier including drug treatment information for use by the drug delivery apparatus.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS [0001] This application is a continuation and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §120 from U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 930,582, filed Aug. 15, 2001, which is a continuation-in-part and claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §120 from of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09 / 781,610, filed Feb. 12, 2001, which claims priority under 35 U.S.C. §119 from United Kingdom patent application no. GB0003197.1, filed Feb. 11, 2000 the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] 1. Field of the Invention [0003] This invention relates to the control of drug delivery apparatus, for example such apparatus for delivering a drug to a patient's lungs through inhalation. [0004] 2. Description of the Related Art [0005] A number of devices are available for delivering a drug into the lungs of a patient. A pneumatic or jet-type nebulizer is particularly effective in supplying an aerosolized drug for inhalation, but other ty...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0014] The drug vials referred to here are suitable containers for holding the drug which is to be administered. Drug vials are manufactured in a number of different configurations, but normally must provide a secure environment which maintains the drug's stability and prevents contamination throughout the specified shelf life. It should normally be convenient for the end user to open. The particular type of vial will be selected for a particular drug on its ability to meets these criteria, and taking account economies of manufacture. The ability to re-program the drug delivery device without returning it is an advantage here. The device can be re-programmed every time a drug is prescribed, if necessary, by a doctor changing the dose on the prescription. Also, the same device can be used for different drugs, in which case the programming can be changed according to which drug is to be delivered.

[0020] Preferably, the drug delivery apparatus is one for delivering the drug in the inhaled air stream to the lungs. The drug delivery device may be an aerosol generator which aerosolizes the drug such that it has a particular size distribution suitable for inhalation, typically in the range of 1 to 5 microns. It is also preferred that the aerosol generator operates to aerosolize the drug during a particular part of the inhalation of a patient in order to maximize lung deposition of the aerosolize drug.

[0022] Preferably, the data carrier is a radio frequency device which is powered inductively from a radio frequency transmitted within the body of the drug delivery apparatus. One of the advantages of using RF devices is that the system requires no electrical contacts between the data carrier and the body of the drug delivery apparatus which could be subject to environmental contamination. The data carrier will generate an RF signal in return which will be superimposed on the driving RF signal from the atomizer, and which is received and decoded by the atomizer.

[0025] As a result of the use of the data carrier, each vial can contain more drug than is expected to be used so as to allow for inefficiency in the patient's breathing patterns caused by poor breathing technique or by breathing affected by a patient's disease, such as in a MDI spacer system or to pediatric patients. In addition, the use of the vials containing larger amounts of a drug can be manufactured for different treatments. The treatment information with the data carrier controls the dose of the drug delivered. Thus, a single vial size of drug can be manufactured and sold, but the size of dose can vary widely depending on the dose information carried by the treatment information. This results in economies of scale and reduces regulatory submissions.

Problems solved by technology

This might mean that a single treatment takes several minutes to deliver because of the amount of the drug which is to be delivered, and the nature of the device which is delivering the drug.

Unfortunately, this is no guarantee of the patient receiving the required dose in his or her lungs.

Most of the drug tends to impact in the patient's airways before it reaches the lungs, and some of the drug is exhausted from the lungs on exhalation.

However, for patients exhibiting symptoms of pulmonary disease, breaths will be shallower and treatment may be interrupted by symptoms of their disease such as coughing.

However, the bar code must be attached to each vial, requiring increased manufacturing costs and also the carrying out of regulatory approval tests to ensure that the adhesives of the label and the dyes used will not contaminate the drug within the plastic vials or reduce the storage life of the product.

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