Over the course of the meeting, an additional 21 podium presentations took place in sessions titled:
• “Back to Biotech – Personalized Medicine and New Drug Development”
• “Global Patent Practice”
• “Targeting Nasal Drug Delivery”
• “Building on Pulmonary and Nasal Delivery: Exploring Alternative Technologies”
• “Particle Engineering and QbD”
• “Are there Alternative Distribution Practices for Inhalers?”
Sixty-five scientific posters were presented at the meeting, and of those, the organizers chose these five to highlight in the Posters on the Podium session on the afternoon of May 7:
• “Chitosan Nanoparticulate Formulation for Pulmonary Vaccination – Formulation and In Vivo Proof of Concept,” Regina Scherliess, Christian Albrecht University of Kiel
• “Evaluation of Respimat Soft Mist Inhaler Based on In Vitro Measurements and CFD Simulations,” Anna-Maria Ciciliani, Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
• “Guar Gum-Based Microparticles as Carriers for Lung Delivery of Anti-tubercular Drugs,” Ana Grenha, University of Algarve
• “Brittle Matrices as a DPI Platform for Combination Therapies,” Alan Watts, University of Texas at Austin
• “Novel DPI Formulation Based on Synergistic Combination of Salbutamol Hemisuccinate and Metatropium Iodide: Characterization, in Vitro and in Vivo Study,” Tatiana Molostova, Moscow City Hospital
With the increasing internationalization of the RDD Europe, the meeting added several accommodations for presenters who lacked fluency in English, and while Dr. Molostova presented her poster in English, the session moderator asked anyone with questions to follow up via email instead of asking questions following the presentation.
And in the “Global Patent Practice” session, Mr. Xiong Yu of Sinopharm gave his talk, “Intellectual Property Protection and Enforcement for Pharmaceuticals in China: Status and Trends,” in Chinese, with live translation. Two translators facilitated the presentation and subsequent questions.
As usual, many of the attendees were particularly interested in hearing from regulators, and in the final session of the meeting, the FDA’s Badrul Chowdhury joined Leslie Hendeles of the University of Florida and New Zealand-based reclassification specialist Natalie Gauld in considering the sale of asthma inhalers over the counter, especially SABAs.
Chowdhury noted the FDA’s NSURE initiative and the recognition of the need for OTC medications, suggesting that technology for both diagnosis and correct inhaler use may help ensure patient access to inhalers without needing to see a doctor for prescriptions and with the possibility of reimbursement for OTC medications.
In discussing whether patients able to get albuterol without being under a doctor’s care would be even less likely to get a prescription for inhaled corticosteroids, Chowdhury pointed out that it’s a fallacy to think that a patient under physician’s care in the US is currently getting a prescription for ICS and suggested that patients might actually use ICS more if it is OTC.
