Promising New Lung Disease Treatments Revealed in Pulmatrix Animated Science Video

Pulmatrix, a pharmaceutical company focused on developing novel inhaled drugs for lung diseases like chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), recently released an animated life sciences video to raise awareness about lung diseases and to describe promising new treatments in the company’s drug portfolio.

“Millions of people struggle to breathe every day because of such diseases as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, cystic fibrosis, and idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis,” said Robert Clarke, Pulmatrix’s CEO in a press release. “For them, the struggle for breath is a struggle for life.”

Pulmatrix uses its proprietary iSPERSE technology to develop dry inhaled therapies targeting serious pulmonary diseases. The technology is a patented dry powder delivery platform seeking to optimize the delivery of therapeutic agents to the lungs by maximizing local concentrations and reducing systemic side effects.

The company’s pipeline includes products like PUR0200, a branded generic in clinical development for COPD; PUR1900, an inhaled antifungal that could potentially benefit patients with asthma and cystic fibrosis; and PUR1500, an investigational drug developed for the treatment of idioptahic pulmonary fibrosis.

“Our delivery system, which we call iSPERSE, has several potential advantages over most current approaches,” sad David Hava, the company’s chief scientific officer. “We believe that our delivery efficiency should allow patients who have trouble breathing to inhale the needed drugs into their lungs, with almost no deposition in the throat. We believe that the system should also be able to reliably deliver high doses, and be used with many types of drugs.”

In typical inhaled treatment therapies, a substantial part of the therapeutic agents never make it to the lungs because it gets stuck in the throat, wasting considerable amounts of the drug and causing side effects. The Pulmatrix animated video shows how the company tackled this problem by designing dry particles and a delivery system that delivers the drug straight into the lungs.

iSPERSE (inhaled Small Particles Easily Respirable and Emitted) particles are engineered to be small, dense and easily dispersible. They are designed to solve limitations of conventional lactose blend and metered dose inhaler technologies.

“Better drug delivery means better patient outcomes,” Clarke said. “Our inhaled therapies should help patients breathe easier and improve their quality of life.”