The UCPH spin-out company Sonohaler invents a new inhaler for respiratory patients

SUND researchers have co- developed a new dry powder inhaler for respiratory patients, where the patients can more easily take high-dose medication and monitor the effectiveness of their inhalation via an app. The team has recently filed a patent for the product.

It all began with a Eurostars project and has been a close and very interdisciplinary collaboration between the drug formulation scientists from SUND and data scientists from Sonohaler and engineers from Superellipse.

A complex process, but “go for it”, says Associate Professor Mingshi Yang from Department of Pharmacy.

Innovation, a close collaboration and not a solo performance

As co-PI of the Eurostars project, Mingshi Yang led a small team of a postdoc, a PhD student and a master’s student to develop dry powder formulations for testing of the new model of a dry powder inhaler.

The product development process was not without difficulties, Mingshi Yang recalls: “One of the greatest challenges in the development of a capsule based dry powder inhalers was finding innovative solutions for delivering dry powders to the lung, and to be able to patent the innovation solution. Another challenge that we came across was training sound algorithms to be used in the app.”

A fundamental part of the new design was creating a sound that gives enriched data, data than in the end can give the patient reliable feedback via the app.

Relevant help from UCPH Lighthouse

Legally binding agreements are also a complicated part of product development, but here the team had access to the resources for innovators and entrepreneurs at UCPH Lighthouse.

“It was very useful to us,” Mingshi Yang says. “Colleagues in UCPH Lighthouse helped us with preparing agreements and discussing issues with Sonohaler”.

The patent is now filed, and before the product can be marketed, Sonohaler also has to secure a CE marking.

Product development and/ or research productivity?

Developing a new product and the resulting hours spent on patenting and legal work does not mean less research productivity. For Mingshi Yang tells, it also resulted in a survey on patients’ product experiences and a published paper because he co-supervised a guest master student with Professor Susanne Kaae from Department of Pharmacy and Adam Bohr from Sonohaler. The survey was about cystic fibrosis patients’ experience with electronic devices, a study later published in Respiratory Medicine: Cystic fibrosis patients’ preferences for electronic devices that monitor their inhalation: A qualitative study.” At the MVIC inhalation symposium in Lund, the poster “Impact of Powder Compression on Aerosol Performance of Capsule-Based Dry Powder Inhalers — Spray-Dried Lysozyme Microparticles with Different Morphologies as an Example” was also showcased.

The greatest payoff: creating a new design – and international teamwork

For Mingshi Yang, the greatest payoff of the entire process has been the new device that has been designed and developed by the team consisting of Superellipse and Sonohaler: “It had been considered to be extremely challenging or impossible to develop patentable dry powder inhaler, as the market of dry powder inhalers is rather mature. Another one is that I enjoyed working in an interdisciplinary team consisting of engineers, data scientists, and formulation scientists”. 

As a final advice for fellow researchers considering innovation and product development, Mingshi Yang says: “Go for it. Stay open-minded when collaborating with industrial partners. Communicate clearly and be willing to go the extra mile”.