Breath-Powered Dry Powder Inhaler with Rigid Air Conduits
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Solution Overview
Problem
Existing dry powder inhalers face challenges such as lack of ruggedness, inconsistency in dosing, inconvenience, poor deagglomeration, and patient compliance due to reliance on propellants, leading to inefficient delivery of medicaments to the pulmonary tract.
Innovation Solution
A dry powder inhalation system featuring a breath-powered, compact, reusable or disposable inhaler with airflow conduit pathways for effective delivery, incorporating a moveable mechanism to reconfigure cartridges from a containment to a dosing position, ensuring consistent and reproducible powder delivery to the deep lung, utilizing rigid air conduits for maximal deagglomeration and minimizing throat deposition.
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 inconsistency in dose delivery occurs due to variations in air conduit architecture from puncturing or peeling films
Solution Approach 1:
The inhaler is divided into separate functional modules: a reusable inhaler body with rigid air conduits and a disposable cartridge containing the medicament. This segmentation allows the rigid conduit system to ensure consistent airflow and dosing, while the disposable cartridge provides moisture protection and eliminates the need for film puncturing or peeling operations that cause variability.
2Productivity
If dry powder inhalers rely on propellants for drug delivery, then aerosol delivery is achieved, but lack of ruggedness and patient compliance issues occur
Solution Approach 1:
The inhaler is designed to be breath-powered, utilizing the patient's own inhalation effort to drive the airflow and deliver the medicament. This eliminates the need for propellants, batteries, or complex mechanical actuation systems, resulting in a more rugged, simpler device that is easier for patients to use and comply with.
3Device complexity
If dry powder inhalers use soft or flexible air conduits, then device simplicity is maintained, but poor deagglomeration and throat deposition occur
Solution Approach 1:
The air conduit system is segmented into rigid sections within the inhaler body, which provide the structural integrity needed for effective deagglomeration and minimal throat deposition. The rigid conduits maintain precise geometric relationships and flow characteristics that are difficult to achieve with flexible tubing.
4Measurement precision
If complete discharge of powder formulation is required during inhalation, then dosing reproducibility is improved, but device complexity increases due to need for precise control mechanisms
Solution Approach 1:
The inhaler design uses a simplified approach where the rigid air conduit geometry and breath-powered operation naturally produce consistent dosing without requiring complex electronic controls, sensors, or feedback mechanisms. The physical design itself acts as the control system, replicating reliable dosing through its structure rather than active control.
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 efficient delivery of dry powder formulations to the pulmonary tract, ensuring high patient compliance by providing a user-friendly, cost-effective, and reliable method for delivering active agents to the systemic circulation, with over 75% of the cartridge contents dispensed in a single inhalation maneuver.
Implementation Method 1
Drugs delivered by inhalation are typically delivered using positive pressure relative to atmospheric pressure in air with propellants
Implementation Method 2
The amount of fine powder discharged from the inhaler's mouthpiece during inhalation is largely dependent on, for example, interparticulate forces in the powder formulation and efficiency of the inhaler to separate those particles
Implementation Method 3
Dry powder inhalers can deliver drugs by converting drug particles in a carrier into a fine dry powder which is entrained into an air flow and inhaled by the patient
Data Source
AI summary
A pulmonary drug delivery system is disclosed, including a breath-powered, dry powder inhaler, and 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, insulin and glucagon-like peptide 1 for the treatment of disease and disorders, for example, endocrine disease such as diabetes and/or obesity.