Respiratory drug delivery – a $44bn opportunity

Whilst anyone involved in the design and developments of inhaler products will clearly stand to benefit from this huge CAGR of over 14%, the question that comes to mind is, “What is causing such significant market growth?”

Much can be attributed to the unfortunate rise in asthma and COPD resulting from rapid industrial expansion in BRIC countries – however, a recent report (April 2011) by Frost & Sullivan estimates that the total number of US citizens with asthma or COPD is likely to rise to almost 44 million by 2016 – 4 million more than in 2009. Even in the Western world, respiratory disease is an increasing problem.

There is also substantial research currently underway to deliver drugs via the pulmonary route for therapies beyond asthma and COPD – for example; break-through cancer pain, migraine relief, diabetes and vaccination. This offers exciting opportunities to develop devices that must work for inexperienced users. Usability will be paramount to the success of such inhaler products – their market will not be well-practiced individuals who routinely inhale twice daily. Additionally, many of these new formulations are unlikely to be carrier-based, due to the high dosage requirements. Devices that deliver drug-only formulations are technically challenging, and rely upon different underlying aerosol science to classical carrier-based formulations.

So it appears that we have busy times ahead… The challenge is to develop inhaler technologies which can deliver sometimes large quantities of respirable particles in a controlled and efficient manner, and that do not require the extensive effort of developing ‘engineered’ formulations in order to work effectively.