Norton (waterford) Limited

Ivax Pharmaceuticals Ireland

Teva Pharmaceuticals Ireland

Norton Healthcare Limited

Microdose Therapeutx, Inc.

Teva Pharmecuticals Ireland

Ivax Pharmaeuticals Ireland

Norton Gmbh

Daniel R Buck

Declan Walsh

Jan Geert Hazenberg

Jeffrey A Karg

Robert Charles Uschold

Derek Fenlon

Simon Kaar

Paul Clancy

Enrique Calderon Oliveras

Douglas E Weitzel

Paul Prendergast

Mark Steven Morrison

Peter John Crowley

Xian-Ming Zeng

Julian Alexander Blair

Josh Gottesman

Hardik Kirtikumar Shah

Frederic Scott Fleming

Christopher David Edlin

Trevor Kent

Niall Thompson

Robert Owen Kivlin

Ross William Weir

Steven David Gardner

James Roche

Erica Jamie Kantor

Dong Yang

Denis Henry O'Sullivan

E Douglas Weitzel

Disclosed are dry powder inhalers for delivering medicament to a user from a blister pack, the blister pack having a plurality of spaced-apart blister pockets containing doses of the medicament. The inhalers comprise: a housing for accommodating unused and used portions of the blister pack together with a dispensing mechanism for selectively opening the blister pockets; and a manifold component through which air can be drawn in use of the inhaler. The manifold component comprises: a primary air inlet opening for receiving first external air; an air outlet opening for providing the external air from the primary air inlet opening into an opened blister pocket, the primary air inlet opening being fluidly connected to the air outlet opening by a primary air delivery conduit formed in the manifold component; a medicament inlet opening for receiving air-entrained medicament from the opened blister pocket, the air outlet opening and the medicament inlet opening being arranged side-by-side to enable simultaneous communication with the opened blister pocket; and a medicament outlet opening for delivery of the air-entrained medicament from the opened blister pocket to the user, the medicament inlet opening being fluidly connected to the medicament outlet opening by a medicament delivery conduit formed in the manifold component. The disclosed inhalers embodiments provide a variety of improvements to the design of the manifold component.

Dry powder medicament inhaler

A compliance monitoring module for a breath-actuated inhaler comprising: a miniature pressure sensor, a sensor port of said sensor being pneumatically coupled to a flow channel through which a user can inhale; a processor configured to: receive a signal originating from a dosing mechanism of the inhaler indicating that medication has been released; receive data from a sensing element of the sensor; and based on said signal from said dosing mechanism and said data from said sensing element, make a determination that inhalation of a breath containing medication through said flow channel complies with one or more predetermined requirements for successful dosing; and a transmitter configured to, responsive to said determination, issue a dosing report.

Compliance monitoring module for a breath-actuated inhaler

An inhaler housing () for an inhaler () for inhaling inhalable substances, the inhaler having: a body () and a dose counter () with a return spring (), wherein a distinct guide surface () is provided for guiding the end of the return spring into a recess (), the distinct guide surface being wider than an entrance mouth () of the recess, a dose counter chamber () being provided which is separated from a tubular interior space () of the inhaler by a barrier (), the barrier including a stepped upper wall area () including at least three steps () at different levels, the inhaler having a valve stem block () having an inner bore and a valve stem block having a seal () in the inner bore with a second diameter which is smaller than a first diameter of the inner bore, the inhaler having a canister () being adapted to move during operation between 1 and 4 mm, a drive being arranged to apply a firing force of between 15N and 60N of force to the canister at a position of the canister relative to a valve stem () at which the canister fires.

Inhalers and related methods

Disclosed is a dry powder inhaler for delivering medicament from at least one blister pack, each blister pack having a plurality of spaced-apart blister pockets containing doses of the medicament. The inhaler comprises: a housing for accommodating unused and used portions of the at least one blister pack together with a dispensing mechanism for simultaneously opening at least two blister pockets at a time; and a manifold component through which air can be drawn in use of the inhaler. The manifold component comprises: first and second air inlet openings for receiving external air a first air outlet opening for providing the external air to a first opened blister pocket and a first medicament inlet opening for receiving air-entrained medicament from the first opened blister pocket, the first air outlet opening and the first medicament inlet opening being arranged side-by-side to enable simultaneous communication with the first opened blister pocket; a second air outlet opening for providing the external air to a second opened blister pocket and a second medicament inlet opening for receiving air-entrained medicament from the second opened blister pocket, the second air outlet opening and the second medicament inlet opening being arranged side-by-side to enable simultaneous communication with the second opened blister pocket; and a medicament outlet opening for delivery of the air-entrained medicament from the first and second opened blister pockets to the user, the first and second medicament inlet openings being fluidly connected to the medicament outlet opening by a medicament delivery conduit formed in the manifold component. The first and second air inlet openings are fluidly connected to the first and second air outlet openings by respective first and second air conduits in the manifold component, wherein the air conduits are separately provided so that the external air from each of the first and second air inlet openings does not mix with the external air from the other of the first and second air inlet openings before reaching the first and second opened blister pockets.

Provided is a blister pack for a dry powder inhaler, which dry powder inhaler is configured to deliver a first powder medicament and a second powder medicament different from the first powder medicament. The first and second powder medicaments are contained within blister pockets defined in a strip. A series of blister pockets is defined in the strip, which series extends linearly along the length of the strip. The first and second powder medicaments are contained in blister pockets, e.g. respective blister pockets, of the series. Alternatively or additionally, each of the blister pockets is elongated such as to have a largest dimension parallel with the length of the strip. These measures, either individually or in combination, enable minimizing of the width of the strip in spite of the strip accommodating both the first and second powder medicaments. This, in turn, may enable the depth/thickness of the dry powder inhaler to be minimized, and/or additional space to be provided inside the dry powder inhaler for accommodating, for example, use detection and wireless connectivity electronics for sending use detection data to an external device, such as a smartphone.

Blister pack and inhaler comprising the same

The present disclosure describes an inhaler for the inhalation of powder medication. The inhaler has a body and at least one reservoir containing powder medication, the body having an air inlet and an outlet for the transmission to a patient of air entering the body through the air inlet and powder medication. The outlet has a total cross-sectional area for flow which is more than 80% of the total cross-sectional area of the air inlet.

Inhalers and airflow adaptors therefor

A breath actuated metered dose inhaler may comprise a canister fire system configured to fire a medicament containing canister in response to patient inhalation. The canister fire system may comprise a pneumatic force holding unit and having a rest configuration in which a metering valve of the canister is in a refill configuration; a prepared configuration in which a canister actuation force is retained by the pneumatic force holding unit and the canister fire system is actuatable by patient inhalation induced airflow; and a fire configuration in which the metering valve is in a dose delivery position. When in the prepared configuration, the force retained by the pneumatic force holding unit may be reduced by less than about 6% over a period of 5 minutes, preferably less than about 3% over a period of 5 minutes.

Breath actuated inhaler

A compliance monitoring module for an inhaler comprising: a miniature pressure sensor, a sensor port of said sensor being configured to be pneumatically coupled to a flow channel of said inhaler through which a user can inhale; a processor configured to: receive data from a sensing element of the pressure sensor; receive data from a mode sensor configured to detect when the inhaler changes from an inactive mode to an active mode; and based on said data from said pressure sensor sensing element and said data from said mode sensor, compile a compliance report; and a transmitter configured to issue said compliance report.

Compliance monitoring module for an inhaler

An inhaler () has a main body for accommodating a medicament reservoir (), a canister fire system for moving a canister () to release a dose in response to air flow, a cap housing () for enclosing the canister fire system and canister within an interior chamber defined by the main body () and a cap housing, wherein a lock system () is provided for locking the cap housing on the main body.

A nasal inhaler for the inhalation of inhalable substances comprise: a canister having an interior reservoir containing pressurised inhalable substances including fluid; a metering valve including a metering chamber and a valve stem defining a communication path between the metering chamber and the interior reservoir, the communication path including an opening configured to permit flow between a transfer space inside the valve stem and the interior reservoir, the interior reservoir being arranged for orientation above the metering chamber whereby gas located within the metering chamber is replaced with liquid from the interior reservoir.

The invention provides a method of testing an inhaler based on performing an optical analysis of a dry powder medicament plume discharged from the inhaler upon actuation. More particularly, embodiments of the invention comprise illuminating the dry powder plume with a source of electromagnetic radiation and capturing one or more images of a pattern of radiation reflected or diffracted by the illuminated plume. The images are subsequently processed to determine and/or analyse one or more geometric and/or dynamic characteristics of the plume.

Testing method for a dry powder inhaler

An inhaler includes a mouthpiece cover, a pressure sensor, a first indicator and a second indicator. The first indicator may be configured to indicate based on a state of the cover, and the second indicator may be configured to indicate based on an output of the pressure sensor. For example, when the mouthpiece cover opens, the first indicator may illuminate and a dose of medication may be transferred from a reservoir to a dosing cup. The second indicator may illuminate if an amount of inhaled medication reaches a predetermined threshold for successful inhalation.

Compliance-assisting module for an inhaler

An inhaler () for the inhalation of inhalable substances comprise: a canister () having an interior reservoir () containing pressurised inhalable substances including fluid; a metering valve () including a metering chamber () and a valve stem () defining a communication path between the metering chamber and the interior reservoir, the communication path () including an opening () configured to permit flow between a transfer space inside the valve stem and the interior reservoir, the interior reservoir being arranged for orientation above the metering chamber whereby gas such as air located within the metering chamber is replaced with liquid from the interior reservoir.

Growing community of inventors

Waterford, Ireland

Daniel R Buck