Preparation of Spray-Dried Nanoparticles for Efficient Drug Delivery to the Lungs

The use of nanoparticulate systems for pulmonary drug delivery offers a number of advantages including significantly improved delivery efficiency to deep lung and the improved bioavailability. The traditional nanoparticle manufacturing process such as ball/jet milling often yields large aggregates, which could detrimentally inhibit the effective delivery of drug particles to the lower respiratory tract. Here we report an alternative technique of spray-drying the microemulsions to produce nanoparticles (<100 nm) that can be dispersed homogenously in the propellant to form an extremely stable pressurized metered-dose inhaler (pMDI) formulations. Such nanoparticulate formulations provide an ideal tool for pulmonary drug delivery.