Peptide Isolation via Spray Drying: Particle Formation, Process Design and Implementation for the Production of Spray Dried Glucagon

Design and applications of polymer-like peptides in biomedical nanogels

INTRODUCTION

Polymer nanogels are among the most promising nanoplatforms for use in biomedical applications. The substantial interest for these drug carriers is to enhance the transportation of bioactive substances, reduce the side effects, and achieve optimal action on the curative sites by targeting delivery and triggering the release of the drugs in a controlled and continuous mode.

AREA COVERED

The review discusses the opportunities, applications, and challenges of synthetic polypeptide nanogels in biomedicine, with an emphasis on the recent progress in cancer therapy. It is evidenced by the development of polypeptide nanogels for better controlled drug delivery and release, in complex in vivo microenvironments in biomedical applications.

EXPERT OPINION

Polypeptide nanogels can be developed by choosing the amino acids from the peptide structure that are suitable for the type of application. Using a stimulus - sensitive peptide nanogel, it is possible to obtain the appropriate transport and release of the drug, as well as to achieve desirable therapeutic effects, including safety, specificity, and efficiency. The final system represents an innovative way for local and sustained drug delivery at a specific site of the body.

Hierarchy of the Components in Spray-Dried, Protein-Excipient Particles Using DNP-Enhanced NMR Spectroscopy

Protein-based drugs are becoming increasingly important, but there are challenges associated with their formulation (for example, formulating stable inhalable aerosols while maintaining the proper long-term stability of the protein). Determining the morphology of multicomponent, protein-based drug formulations is particularly challenging. Here, we use dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) solid-state NMR spectroscopy to determine the hierarchy of components within spray-dried particles containing protein, trehalose, leucine, and trileucine. DNP NMR was applied to these formulations to assess the localization of the components within the particles. We found a consistent scheme, where trehalose and the protein are co-located within the same phase in the core of the particles and leucine and trileucine are distributed in separate phases at the surface of the particles. The description of the hierarchy of the organic components determined by DNP NMR enables the rationalization of the performance of the formulation.

Stabilizing vaccines via drying: Quality by design considerations

Pandemics and epidemics are continually challenging human beings' health and imposing major stresses on the societies particularly over the last few decades, when their frequency has increased significantly. Protecting humans from multiple diseases is best achieved through vaccination. However, vaccines thermal instability has always been a hurdle in their widespread application, especially in less developed countries. Furthermore, insufficient vaccine processing capacity is also a major challenge for global vaccination programs. Continuous drying of vaccine formulations is one of the potential solutions to these challenges. This review highlights the challenges on implementing the continuous drying techniques for drying vaccines. The conventional drying methods, emerging technologies and their adaptation by biopharmaceutical industry are investigated considering the patented technologies for drying of vaccines. Moreover, the current progress in applying Quality by Design (QbD) in each of the drying techniques considering the critical quality attributes (CQAs), critical process parameters (CPPs) are comprehensively reviewed. An expert advice is presented on the required actions to be taken within the biopharmaceutical industry to move towards continuous stabilization of vaccines in the realm of QbD.

Focusing on powder processing in dry powder inhalation product development, manufacturing and performance

Dry powder inhalers (DPI) are well established products for the delivery of actives via the pulmonary route. Various DPI products are marketed or developed for the treatment of local lung diseases such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), asthma or cystic fibrosis as well as systemic diseases targeted through inhaled delivery (i.e. Diabetes Mellitus). One of the key prerequisites of DPI formulations is that the aerodynamic size of the drug particles needs to be below 5 µm to enter deeply into the respiratory tract. These inherently cohesive inhalable size particles are either formulated as adhesive mixture with coarse carrier particles like lactose called carrier-based DPI or are formulated as free-flowing carrier-free particles (e.g. soft agglomerates, large hollow particles). In either case, it is common practice that drug and/or excipient particles of DPI formulations are obtained by processing API and API/excipients. The DPI manufacturing process heavily involves several particle and powder technologies such as micronization of the API, dry blending, powder filling and other particle engineering processes such as spray drying, crystallization etc. In this context, it is essential to thoroughly understand the impact of powder/particle properties and processing on the quality and performance of the DPI formulations. This will enable prediction of the processability of the DPI formulations and controlling the manufacturing process so that meticulously designed formulations are able to be finally developed as the finished DPI dosage form. This article is intended to provide a concise account of various aspects of DPI powder processing, including the process understanding and material properties that are important to achieve the desired DPI product quality. Various endeavors of model informed formulation/process design and development for DPI powder and PAT enabled process monitoring and control are also discussed.