Heating unit for use in a drug delivery device

Abstract

Drug supply units are disclosed which comprise substrates having a plurality of holes formed therein.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCES TO RELATED APPLICATIONS[0001]This application claims the priority of earlier filed U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 60 / 894,116, filed Mar. 9, 2007. The entire content of that provisional application is expressly incorporated by reference herein.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0002]The present invention relates generally to drug supply units comprising a substrate having a plurality of holes. More particularly, embodiments of the invention relate to drug supply units intended to be used to vaporize a drug composition deposited on a surface of the substrate, drug delivery devices comprising such drug supply units, and methods of producing an aerosol using such drug delivery devices.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0003]Traditionally, inhalation therapy has played a relatively minor role in the administration of therapeutic agents when compared to more traditional drug administration routes of oral delivery and delivery via injection. Due to drawbacks associated with traditiona...

AI Technical Summary

Problems solved by technology

Due to drawbacks associated with traditional routes of administration, including slow onset, poor patient compliance, inconvenience, and / or discomfort, alternative administration routes have been sought.

However, despite such results, the role of inhalation therapy in the health care field has remained limited mainly to treatment of asthma, in part due to a set of problems unique to the development of inhalable drug formulations and their delivery modalities, especially formulations for, and delivery by, inhalation.

Metered dose inhaler formulations involve a pressurized propellant, which is frequently a danger to the environment, and generally produces aerosol particle sizes undesirably large for systemic delivery by inhalation.

Furthermore, the high speed at which the pressurized particles are released from metered dose inhalers makes the deposition of the particles undesirably dependent on the precise timing and rate of patient inhalation.

Also, the metered dose inhaler itself tends to be inefficient because a portion of the dose is lost on the wall of the actuator, and due to the high speed of ejection of the aerosol from the nozzle, much of the drug impacts ballistically on the tongue, mouth, and throat, and never gets to the lung.

While solving some of the problems with metered dose inhalers, dry powder formulations are prone to aggregation and low flowability phenomena which considerably diminish the efficiency of dry powder-based inhalation therapies.

Such problems are particularly severe for dry powders having an aerosol particle size small enough to be optimal for deep lung delivery, as difficulty of particle dispersion increases as particle size decreases.

Moreover, the dispersion of liquids generally involves complex and cumbersome devices and is effective only for solutions with specific physical properties, e.g. viscosity.

Such solutions cannot be produced for many drugs due to the solubility properties of the drug.

Volatilization, however, subjects the drug to potential chemical degradation via thermal, oxidative, and / or other means.

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