Nasal spray device for administration of two-part drug formulations

Intranasal drug delivery is an attractive route to noninvasively achieve a rapid therapeutic effect, avoid first pass metabolism, and bypass the blood brain barrier. However, the types of drugs that can be administered by this route has been limited, in part, by device technology. Herein, we describe a pneumatic nasal spray device that is capable of mixing liquid and solid components of a drug formulation as part of the actuation process during dose administration. The ability to store a nasal spray drug formulation as two separate components can be leveraged to solve a variety of stability issues that would otherwise preclude intranasal administration. Examples of drugs that could be delivered intranasally by utilizing this two-part formulation strategy include biomolecules that are unstable in solution and low solubility drugs that can be rendered into metastable supersaturated solutions. A proof of concept nasal spray device prototype was constructed to demonstrate that a liquid and solid can be rapidly mixed and atomized into a spray in a single action. The primary breakup distance and angle of the spray cone were measured as a function of the function of the propellant gas pressure.