Baxter says drug delivery research encouraging

The study demonstrates that the insulin powder can be effectively administered using a dry powder inhaler designed for upper airway drug delivery. Each subject received a single dose of 10 international units of insulin through subcutaneous injection in one period, and 6.5 milligrams of the inhaled insulin microspheres, called recombinant human insulin inhalation powder (RHIIP) in the other period.

RHIIP is made using Baxter’s proprietary Promaxx formulation technology. Unlike other dry powder formulations of insulin, RHIIP is 95% insulin and does not rely on the use of inactive ingredients to facilitate delivery to the deep lung. In this study, no serious adverse events were reported and no subjects withdrew from the study due to an adverse event.

“These encouraging results show the bioavailability of RHIIP compare favorably with that observed for many other inhaled insulin preparations, even though the standard type of inhaler used in this study was not optimized for delivery of insulin to the deep lung,” said Dr Tim Heise, Profil Institut fur Stoffwechselforschung GmbH in Neuss, Germany.

“RHIIP may have the potential to achieve even higher bioavailability through further improvements in the insulin delivery technique, and this will be the subject of further studies.”