Benefits of Nasal Drug Delivery
Compared with existing available therapies, nasal drug delivery products offer comfort, convenience and control for those who use them – patients, their caregivers, physicians, emergency care workers and other health care professionals. Specifically, ITI’s nasal spray medications:
- Are simple and easy to administer
- Are noninvasive and virtually pain free
- Reduce irritation as they are preservative-free
- Avoid biohazardous waste or needlestick accident risks
- Demonstrate rapid onset of action and efficient absorption
- Provide for precise, metered doses
- Enable greater patient compliance
- Reduce abuse potential through unit dosing
Enhanced safety and well-being
Because ITI’s nasal products are needle-free, they will not produce biohazardous waste, are noninvasive and virtually pain free, and allow patients to self-administer their medication.
Injections are linked to the risk of contamination and infection in patients as well as health care workers and others who come in contact with used needles. Recognizing the risks that needles pose, the Federal Needlestick Safety and Prevention Act requires health care institutions to use safer delivery systems whenever possible. Nasal sprays are an alternative to injections because they eliminate needles and the associated risk of contamination from blood. Also, while only a trained health professional can perform an injection, patients, caregivers and professionals can readily use nasal sprays with minimal instruction or assistance.
Faster absorption, rapid onset
Compared to oral, sublingual and sometimes intramuscular injections, drugs administered nasally are absorbed more quickly.
ITI has demonstrated this effect with several of its formulations. Faster absorption and onset of action may also result in faster symptom relief. ITI is collecting additional data to study the onset of effects from nasally delivered drugs as part of its ongoing product development programs.
Smaller doses, fewer potential side effects
ITI’s products allow medication to bypass the gastrointestinal tract and liver, therefore making smaller doses possible and potentially reducing adverse gastrointestinal-related side effects.
Orally administered drugs like midazolam and hydromorphone tend to be rapidly metabolized by the intestinal tract and liver and have greater variability in their absorption and bioavailability than nasally delivered drugs. ITI studies show that smaller doses of the same two nasally administered drugs produce faster absorption rates and bioavailability yet with similar plasma concentrations as the orally delivered forms. Gastrointestinal-related side effects may also be reduced because nasally delivered medication bypasses the gut.
Greater accuracy, less waste and abuse
ITI products improve the likelihood that patients will take regular and accurate doses of their medication because nasal devices are compatible with active lifestyles and reduce the potential for waste and abuse.
Unit delivery devices limit the number of doses available in a single device. Once the dose is administered, no nasal solution remains in the used vial and the device can be easily discarded. This product design greatly reduces the risk of leftover medication being either wasted or used by someone else and, in a busy hospital or home setting, helps health care workers, caretakers and patients effectively track medication being administered.
Patients using unit dose devices also cannot change the volume of their medication by how hard or quickly they press the plunger, nor does administration of a complete dose depend in any way on coordination with inhalation through the nose. In one clinical trial, the unit dose device ITI uses has shown greater accuracy than a marketed multidose spray pump.
