DDL 2017 in review

DDL 2017 drew 750 delegates, a record number, to the Edinburgh International Conference Centre. Topics that received sustained attention over the course of the 3-day meeting included the use of modeling techniques, development of inhaled antibiotics for diseases such as tuberculosis, the lessons of e-cigarettes, and the use of acoustics for inhaler monitoring and characterization.

In her presentation of the annual DDL Lecture, Myrna Dolovich of McMaster University/St Joseph`s Healthcare addressed several of those trends in what she called a “Janus talk” that would “look forward to what’s coming and back to what has occurred” over her 40-year career in aerosol research. She recounted her work on development of the Aerochamber valved holding chamber and expressed concern that with companies focused on licensing existing inhaler technologies there would be fewer innovations in inhaler design in years to come, though she also noted that, despite numerous innovations in inhaler technology, patient technique has still not improved over the past 40 years.

Another of the past projects Dolovich recalled was the development of a nicotine microaerosol inhaler in the late 1990s, which the university did not see fit to patent. Regarding the current unregulated e-cigarette trend, she said, “I think we will see real problems in the next 10-20 years from people using e-cigarettes, not just from nicotine but from the excipients that are used, too.”

Later in the meeting, Philippe Rogueda of Merxin also addressed the wide use of untested e-cigarette, or vaping, formulations, suggesting that OINDP formulators can benefit from what is, in effect, “a giant worldwide open source clinical and epidemiological trial” evaluating the safety of inhaling excipients such as propylene glycol and vegetable glycerin that costs pharmaceutical companies nothing.