Breath-Powered Dry Powder Inhaler with U-Shaped Conduit
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing dry powder inhalers face challenges such as inconsistency in dosing, poor deagglomeration, and powder retention, leading to inefficient drug delivery to the lungs.
Innovation Solution
The development of a dry powder inhalation system with a breath-powered, compact, and reusable or disposable inhaler design, featuring a system of airflow conduit pathways for effective and rapid delivery of dry powder medicaments. This system includes a mouthpiece, a container, and at least two rigid air conduits, with a mechanism to reconfigure a cartridge from a containment position to a dosing position upon movement of the inhaler.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Object-affected harmful factors
If dry powder inhalers use blisters to deliver medicament, then good moisture protection is achieved, but air enters the drug compartment causing formulations to lose viability and dose delivery inconsistency
Solution Approach 1:
The inhaler is divided into separate functional modules: a reusable inhaler body and replaceable cartridges containing the dry powder formulation. This segmentation allows the cartridge to be sealed during manufacturing and only opened during use, preventing both moisture ingress and air entrapment that cause dosing inconsistency.
Solution Approach 2:
The problematic blister packaging is extracted and replaced with a dedicated cartridge system designed specifically for dry powder delivery. The cartridge includes a sealed container that is punctured or opened only during the dosing operation, eliminating the air leakage issues inherent in blister packs while maintaining moisture protection.
2Productivity
If dry powder inhalers deagglomerate powder formulation, then fine powder is discharged for inhalation, but powder retention in internal conduits causes loss of active agent
Solution Approach 1:
The inhaler utilizes the patient's own breath as a pneumatic driver to fluidize and transport the dry powder formulation through the device. The breath-powered airflow system eliminates the need for mechanical moving parts that could retain powder, and the streamlined conduit design ensures complete powder delivery to the patient while minimizing retention in the air pathways.
Solution Approach 2:
The air conduit is designed with a U-shaped configuration that changes the spatial dimension of powder transport. This geometric design allows the airflow to effectively sweep through all regions of the powder reservoir and conduit system, ensuring complete powder delivery while preventing retention in dead zones that would occur with straight-line configurations.
3Manufacturing precision
If dry powder inhalers use rigid air conduits, then powder delivery consistency is improved, but throat deposition increases reducing lung delivery
Solution Approach 1:
The air conduit incorporates curved and tapered sections rather than sharp angles or straight transitions. The U-shaped configuration and gradual geometry changes reduce turbulence and particle impaction in the throat region, allowing consistent powder delivery to be maintained while minimizing harmful deposition in the upper airway.
Solution Approach 2:
The conduit geometry parameters are optimized to balance delivery consistency with reduced throat deposition. The air conduit cross-sectional area, curvature radius, and length are specifically designed to maintain laminar flow patterns that ensure reproducible dosing while reducing particle velocity and impaction forces in the throat region.
Applied Scientific Principles
This section explains which scientific principles are used to turn an abstract innovation direction into a practical engineering solution.
Function Achieved in This Case
The system achieves consistent and reproducible powder delivery, maximizing deposition in the lungs while minimizing throat deposition, and allows for efficient delivery of a wide range of pharmaceuticals, including peptides and proteins.
Implementation Method 1
converting drug particles in a carrier into a fine dry powder which is entrained into an air flow and inhaled by the patient
Implementation Method 2
system of airflow conduit pathways for the effective and rapid delivery of dry powder medicaments
Data Source
AI summary
A pulmonary drug delivery system is disclosed, including a breath-powered, dry powder inhaler, with or without a cartridge for delivering a dry powder formulation. The inhaler and cartridge can be provided with a drug delivery formulation comprising, for example, a diketopiperazine and an active ingredient, including, small organic molecules, peptides and proteins, including, hormones such as insulin and glucagon-like peptide 1 for the treatment of disease and disorders, for example, diseases and disorders, including endocrine disease such as diabetes and/or obesity.