Spraytec in vaccine delivery development programme

Researchers at Aerovax, working at MIT, are using the Spraytec particle size analyser in the development of an innovative platform for vaccine delivery, intended for use in developing countries

Aerovax is a nebuliser-based system that reproducibly reconstitutes a vaccine as an aerosol for inhalation, without the need for an electricity supply.

Spraytec is being used to confirm the performance of this novel drug delivery system.

"Malvern Instruments generously offered their support for this project, providing us with access to a Spraytec system," said Jose Gomez-Marquez, VP of Engineering at Aerovax: "The Aerovax system uses pedal or solar-powered air propulsion to produce a vaccine aerosol for delivery.

Using the Spraytec we were able to carry out comparative studies which have confirmed that the system performance is similar to that achieved using a standard, electrically-driven air compressor, which is great news for our development team".

Delivering vaccines in aerosol form is a relatively new approach that has shown considerable promise, particularly for measles vaccines, the current focus for the Aerovax team.

Aerovax is designed for operation in countries with little infrastructure, by medically untrained personnel.

Simple to use it offers automated one-step reconstitution of the vaccine formulation in combination with non-electrically powered drug delivery.

"Malvern Instruments is very happy to be involved with this extremely worthwhile project," said Paul Kippax, product manager for diffraction products: "Spraytec measures the size of droplets produced by nebuliser systems, a factor that has a critical impact on uptake of the drug.

The results obtained using the Spraytec correlate with those from traditional sizing techniques.

However, the advantage with Spraytec is that measurements can be carried out very rapidly, allowing researchers to quickly determine whether the performance of a new device has been optimised".

Spraytec is a laser diffraction-based particle size analyser with a measurement rate fast enough to characterise sprays in real time.

Widely used to investigate the performance of nasal sprays, nebulisers and inhalers, it provides accurate data for even highly concentrated spray plumes.

The system is easy-to-use with single-click, SOP-driven operation.

User-friendly software promotes effective data interpretation.

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