Igor Gonda
I am sure that I was not alone to conclude after the 2018 Respiratory Drug Delivery Conference that the most profoundly important session was “Exploring the Benefits of Smart Inhalers on Public Health.” And I immediately thought about the ambitions we had at Aradigm Corporation for our SmartMist device – the first “electronic inhaler.”
Smartmist was really smart: it knew what type of drug was in the metered dose inhaler inserted into it, and it made every user perfect by guiding the patients into the correct inspiratory flow rate and volume with visual feedback in real time. The device also measured the lung function response to the therapy when the patient blew into it, and all of that information was downloadable.
The FDA approved SmartMist almost exactly two decades ago; but alas, it was withdrawn from the market soon after because very few patients wanted it, and even fewer patients were willing to pay for it. In the end, we gave most of the devices away for research.
The good news is that we live now in very different times, and we no longer need to convince anyone that “smart” personal devices empower us to do things we did not even dream about in the 1990s.
As was evident at RDD, numerous companies are developing smart, connected inhalers and nasal sprays in 2018, with the potential to bring about a new era of cloud medicine in respiratory delivery as well as in respiratory health and disease.
However, many challenges in the implementation of these systems remain, and pharma companies making connected inhalers will need to work together, as well as with patients and with the FDA and other regulators worldwide, to achieve success. One powerful reason for cooperation is the need for integration of “connected electronic” products with a high degree of similarity or even uniformity.
