Multi-award winning medical design and development company Team Consulting has released feasibility test results for its innovative Occoris® inhaler engine concept, demonstrating a two to three fold improvement in the efficiency of drug delivery to the deep lung compared to typical dry powder inhaler (DPI) devices available today. Occoris is still in an early stage of development, but the results of this recent feasibility testing demonstrates that the technology offers great potential for pharmaceutical companies looking to take inhalers beyond the core asthma and COPD markets.
Current inhaler technology has limited the use of respiratory drug delivery primarily to the treatment of asthma and COPD. These breakthrough inhaler performance results show how the Occoris aerosolisation engine could enable a new range of devices designed to capitalise on current research developing systemic drugs for pulmonary delivery in applications such as pain relief, migraine relief, insulin delivery and vaccination.
The results of the feasibility study, and the potential new therapy areas for DPIs enabled by the technology, have been detailed in a report published today by Team. The full report is available to download here: www.team-consulting.com/occorisreport.
Professor Peter J Barnes, Head of Respiratory Medicine at Imperial College London, commented: “This is an innovative and exciting technology with great potential. It could enable pulmonary delivery of drugs in many different areas, for example in therapies requiring higher payloads such as inhaled antibiotics and systemic drug delivery.”
Occoris is an active, API only, ultra-low cost, high-performance dry powder aerosolisation engine. Once fully developed it could be integrated into a breath-actuated, single-use inhaler costing less than 20 US cents. The UK’s Technology Strategy Board’s Biomedical Catalyst scheme partially funded the feasibility study to assess the technical and commercial viability of the concept.
Conducting the testing in Team’s cGMP Laboratories, the company has demonstrated that Occoris can achieve a Fine Particle Fraction (FPF1) of 73%. This compares to an FPF of 20 to 40% for existing DPIs. In a typical DPI up to 80% of the drug that leaves the device is deposited in the mouth and throat (i.e. it does not reach the lung), whereas Occoris achieved approximately 20% mouth and throat deposition. This superior performance could allow total dosage to be reduced, resulting in a ten-fold reduction in mouth and throat deposition – significantly reducing the risk of unwanted side effects, in particular from steroid-based therapies.
The unique active technology of Occoris ensures that these results could be achieved regardless of the inspiratory effort of the patient – ensuring consistent delivery from dose to dose.
David Harris, Head of Respiratory Drug Delivery at Team Consulting added: “Occoris has the potential to unlock therapies that are currently beyond the reach of existing DPI technologies, marking a step-change in DPI performance. There is more work to be done however and we are actively looking for partners to continue the development of the Occoris aerosolisation engine.”
Philip Canner, who managed the Occoris project at Team Consulting said: “We had this great idea in Occoris and were excited by the possibilities it could bring. The funding that we received from the Technology Strategy Board has enabled us to test, refine and better understand the underlying technology. Occoris has the potential to be of great benefit to our clients as they look to explore new markets and opportunities.”
Team Consulting is attending DDL24 conference at the Edinburgh International Conference Centre, 11-13 December, where they will be available to discuss the Occoris results.
1 – Fine Particle Fraction (FPF) is a measure of the percentage of drug particles leaving the device that are sufficiently small enough to travel deep into the lung and to provide therapy – this is commonly accepted to be those particles with an aerodynamic diameter less than 5 µm.
Images and video
Two videos related to Occoris are available to download and embed:
- ‘The plume of aerosolised drug created by the Occoris inhaler engine’ - https://vimeo.com/80357245
- ‘Team’s David Harris and Philip Canner talking about the Occoris inhaler engine’ - https://vimeo.com/81482828