: In many parts of the world, pharmacists hold the primary responsibility for providing safe and effective pharmacotherapy. A key aspect is the availability of appropriate medicines for each individual patient. When industrially manufactured medicines are unsuitable or unavailable, pharmacists can prepare tailor-made medicines.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInt J Pharm
September 2025
Chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is characterized by irreversible airflow limitation and progressive lung function decline, with a critical need for innovative treatments that can repair damaged lung tissue. The active fragment of osteoglycin (OGN) has previously shown significant regenerative potential in activating growth of alveolar epithelial cells, making it a promising candidate for therapeutic development. In this study, we developed an inhalable dry powder formulation of the OGN fragment using spray drying, incorporating inulin or mannitol as excipients and leucine as a dispersion enhancer.
View Article and Find Full Text PDF() is the predominant pulmonary pathogen in persons with Cystic Fibrosis (CF). Nebulization with tobramycin or colistin is mostly applied but has a significant treatment burden. Dry powder (DP) inhalation may offer an attractive alternative.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNPJ Regen Med
March 2025
There is an urgent need for innovative therapies targeting defective epithelial repair in chronic diseases like COPD. The mesenchymal niche is a critical regulator in epithelial stem cell activation, suggesting that their secreted factors are possible potent drug targets. Utilizing a proteomics-guided drug discovery strategy, we explored the lung fibroblast secretome to uncover impactful drug targets.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFChronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) is the third leading cause of death worldwide, with a significant impact on low- and middle-income countries, making it a critical challenge for global health equity and sustainable development goals. Extracellular vesicles (EVs) are emerging as a promising treatment for COPD, but conventional storage at -80 °C limits their global accessibility. This study explores alternative storage methods to enhance EV stability and accessibility, particularly in low-resource settings.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFBackground: Adjunctive host-directed therapies that modulate host immune responses to reduce excessive inflammation and prevent tissue damage in tuberculosis are being investigated. Macrolides, including azithromycin, were shown to possess anti-inflammatory and immune-modulatory effects in addition to their antibacterial effects. In the current trial, we investigated whether azithromycin enhances resolution of systemic and pulmonary inflammation and decreases extracellular matrix-related tissue turnover in tuberculosis patients.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceutics
January 2025
The application of dissolving microneedle arrays (DMNAs) is an emerging trend in drug and vaccine delivery as an alternative for hypodermic needles or other less convenient drug administration methods. The major benefits include, amongst others, that no trained healthcare personnel is required and that the recipient experiences hardly any pain during administration. However, for a successful drug or vaccine delivery from the DMNA, the microneedles should be inserted intact into the skin.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIntroduction: The pharmaceutical industry is gradually changing batch-wise manufacturing processes to continuous manufacturing processes, due to the advantages it has to offer. The final product quality and process efficiency of continuous manufacturing processes is among others impacted by the properties of the raw materials. Existing knowledge on the role of raw material properties in batch processing is however not directly transferable to continuous processes, due to the inherent differences between batch and continuous processes.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe stability of lactate dehydrogenase (LDH) and β-galactosidase (β-gal), incorporated in arginine/pullulan (A/P) mixtures at various weight ratios by lyophilization, was determined. The physicochemical characteristics of various A/P mixtures were assessed. With decreasing A/P ratios, the glass transition temperature of the formulations increased.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFIn a previous attempt to achieve ileo-colonic targeting of bovine intestinal alkaline phosphatase (BIAP), we applied a pH-dependent coating, the ColoPulse coating, directly on powder bed printed (PBP) tablets. However, the high surface roughness necessitated an additional sub-coating layer [Nguyen, K. T.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFRecombinant human deoxyribonuclease I (rhDNase, Pulmozyme®) is the most frequently used mucolytic agent for the symptomatic treatment of cystic fibrosis (CF) lung disease. Conjugation of rhDNase to polyethylene glycol (PEG) has been shown to greatly prolong its residence time in the lungs and improve its therapeutic efficacy in mice. To present an added value over current rhDNase treatment, PEGylated rhDNase needs to be efficiently and less frequently administrated by aerosolization and possibly at higher concentrations than existing rhDNase.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFInflamm Bowel Dis
March 2024
Background: Therapeutic drug monitoring provides important guidance for treatment of patients with inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) and could help to early identify treatment failure. This study aimed to validate a finger prick-based capillary blood sampling technique to measure biological trough levels and C-reactive protein (CRP) and evaluate patient performance and -support.
Methods: In this prospective cohort study, patients with IBD receiving infliximab (IFX) or vedolizumab (VEDO) therapy performed finger prick-based capillary blood sampling at home.
Pharmaceutics
April 2023
The ileocolonic-targeted delivery of vitamins can establish beneficial alterations in gut microbial composition. Here, we describe the development of capsules containing riboflavin, nicotinic acid, and ascorbic acid covered with a pH-sensitive coating (ColoVit) to establish site-specific release in the ileocolon. Ingredient properties (particle size distribution, morphology) relevant for formulation and product quality were determined.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFOver the past few decades, there has been a tremendous increase in the utilization of therapeutic peptides. Therapeutic peptides are usually administered via the parenteral route, requiring an aqueous formulation. Unfortunately, peptides are often unstable in aqueous solutions, affecting stability and bioactivity.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFThe specifications of excipients are important to pharmaceutical manufacturers to ensure that the final product can be manufactured robustly over the entire lifecycle of a drug product. Particle size specifications are key for dry powder inhalation excipients and they should be agreed between users and suppliers. The current paper evaluates two development strategies to set particle size specifications.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFAlthough vaccination is still considered to be the cornerstone of public health care, the increase in vaccination coverage has stagnated for many diseases. Most of these vaccines require two or three doses to be administered across several months or years. Single-injection vaccine formulations are an effective method to overcome the logistical barrier to immunization that is posed by these multiple-injection schedules.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFExpert Opin Drug Deliv
November 2022
Introduction: Injected mRNA vaccines have been proven effective and safe in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. Using the machinery of the cell, mRNA vaccines translate into an antigen, which triggers an adaptive immune response. The effectiveness of intramuscular administered mRNA vaccines wanes in the months post-vaccination, which makes frequent booster administrations necessary.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFPharmaceutics
October 2022
Powder bed printing is a 3D-printing process that creates freeform geometries from powders, with increasing traction for personalized medicine potential. Little is known about its applications for biopharmaceuticals. In this study, the production of tablets containing alkaline phosphatase using powder bed printing for the potential treatment of ulcerative colitis (UC) was investigated, as was the coating of these tablets to obtain ileo-colonic targeting.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFSwallowing problems and the required dose adaptations needed to obtain optimal pharmacotherapy may be a hurdle in the use of tablets in daily clinical practice. Tablet splitting, crushing, or grinding is often applied to personalise medication, especially for the elderly and children. In this study, the performance of different types of (commercially available) devices was studied.
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