Approximately 550 OINDP specialists attended RDD 2018 in Tucson, Arizona, where much of the interest centered around regulatory issues, especially in light of the FDA’s recent release of a revised draft guidance on MDI and DPI quality considerations.
The RDD organizers capitalized on the release, adding a late breaking presentation by the FDA’s Rik Lostritto on the new draft guidance to the program. Interest in that talk, as well as an Aptar Pharma supplier seminar titled, “Decoding FDA’s Recent Combination Drug Product Guidance: Applications to DPIs, pMDIs, and Nasal Sprays,” and a session on regulatory issues on the final day was high.
Other topics on the program included, “Frontiers in Lung Biology,” “Exploring the Targeting Offered by Inhalation and Molecular Design,” “Exploring the Benefits of Smart Inhalers on Public Health,” “Deposition Modelling for Pharmaceutical Aerosols – Dealing with Dynamic Change,” “Strategies for Regional Nasal Targeting,” ” Innovations in Pharmaceutical Engineering,” and ” Optimizing Aerosol Delivery with Respiratory Support Devices.”
Attendees also caught up on the latest in OINDP research in the poster sessions, featuring almost 85 posters, and visited the technology exhibit where about 100 companies presented products and services for inhaled and nasal drug delivery.
The Charles G. Thiel Award
At the opening of the meeting, RDD Online’s Peter Byron presented the 7th Charles G. Thiel Award to John Pritchard of Philips Respironics, who Byron noted has “really pushed the frontiers of drug delivery” throughout his career. Pritchard worked in aerosol drug delivery for many years at GSK, 3M, and AstraZeneca before joining Philips in 2010; he is also a founding member of the Aerosol Society and a co-founder of the DDL meeting.
