Milling of poorly soluble crystalline drug compounds to generate appropriate particle sizes for inhaled sustained drug delivery

One of the simplest design concepts of inhaled sustained drug delivery to the lung is to utilize the slow dissolution of drug crystals with poor aqueous solubility. An optimum dissolution rate, and thereby a delivery profile locally in the lung tissue, can be achieved in a reliable way by selecting a compound with an appropriate combination of solubility and particle size. It is in our experience relatively straightforward to manufacture monomodal particle size distributions of poorly soluble drug crystals in the mass median diameter range of either a few micrometers or a few hundred nanometers, but very challenging to manufacture a monomodal distribution in the range intermediate to these two. In this manuscript, we describe an investigation with the objective of generating desired particle sizes in the whole size range from a few micrometers to a few hundred nanometers for inhaled sustained drug delivery, by utilizing Adaptive Focused Acoustic (AFA) milling and planetary bead-milling. By combining the two different milling techniques it was possible to produce two to three distinctly different monomodal or almost monomodal particle size distributions in the desired particle size range of each of the model drug compounds in milligram scale. The dissolution kinetics of the different particle sizes of the model drugs were measured experimentally as well as predicted theoretically, showcasing that the dissolution kinetics can be characterized, predicted and significantly changed in a controlled way by modifying the particle size. For one of the model drugs, it was shown in an in vivo rat study that the inhaled sustained drug delivery profile in the lung tissue could be significantly changed by modifying the particle size of the drug.

Automated summary

This paper discusses the design concept of inhaled sustained drug delivery using the slow dissolution of drug crystals, which can achieve a reliable delivery profile in lung tissue by selecting compounds with appropriate dissolution rates. Through the utilization of two different milling techniques, various particle size distributions of drug crystals were successfully produced within the desired particle size range.