A predictive multiscale computational tool for simulation of lung absorption and pharmacokinetics and optimization of pulmonary drug delivery Project Summary/Abstract: Pulmonary drug delivery via oral inhalation is increasingly used for both treatment of lung diseases (such as asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease) and in delivering drugs to the systemic circulation. To reach the desired effectiveness and safety of orally inhaled drugs, appropriate disposition of drugs in targeted region is essential. Due to complex pharmaceutical and physiological factors involving drug transfer from the administration site to the target region, computational modeling tools are urgently required to provide mechanistic insights of involved delivery processes and to estimate efficacy of pulmonary drug delivery in an accurate and efficient manner. Therefore, in this project, we propose to develop a novel predictive multiscale computational tool to simulate delivery, deposition, dissolution, absorption, distribution, metabolism, excretion, and actions of inhaled drug products within an integral framework of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and PBPK-PD models. We will (1.) develop multimodal computational models of drug deposition in the entire respiratory tract after oral inhalation; (2.) develop an multi-compartmental model for drug absorption and local PBPK in the lung tissue (which includes a dissolution model and a transport model across the air-blood barrier); (3) develop a whole body PBPK model for drug distribution, metabolism, and excretion after absorption from the respiratory tract; integrate a compartmental absorption and transit model for drug absorption from the gastrointestinal tract (already developed at CFDRC) to explore the contribution of the swallowed drug to drug PK; (4) integrate the computational tool with pharmacodynamics model, airway mechanics model and lung physiology model to account for various dynamic physiological and pathological factors on pulmonary drug delivery and absorption; (5) calibrate and validate the proposed tool for two generic drugs: budesonide and formoterol; (6) conduct parametric simulations of drug delivery, absorption, and PK for brand and generic drugs and evaluate effects of compound physiochemical characteristics, formulations, physiological settings and pathological factors; and (7) develop databases of generic drugs, formulations, devices, physiological settings, and pathological factors for inhalation delivery. The proposed computational tool will provide a mechanism- based virtual platform to investigate interactions between drug delivery systems and physiological systems in various pathological settings, to provide mechanistic insights into key aspects affecting efficacy and safety of inhaled drug products, and to guide optimal designs of pulmonary drug delivery systems. The accomplishment of the novel integrated computational tool will greatly facilitate design of dose regimen and drug development by identifying key biopharmaceutical factors affecting efficacy and safety of inhaled drugs. The software tool will be developed into a commercial product (user-friendly GUI ) aiming at pharmaceutical and biomedical markets to support a variety of pharmaceutical and biomedical applications, including LADME-T investigation, in vitro-in vivo scaling, dose regimen design, optimization of pulmonary delivery systems, and safety and efficacy evaluation for inhaled drug products.

Public Health Relevance

The novel software tool proposed in this project will provide an efficient and accurate computational platform to virtually test, design, and develop inhaled drug products by investigating interactions between pulmonary delivery systems and the human physiological systems at multiple scales. Applications of the proposed computational tool will reveal key aspects affecting fate of administered drugs and consequent therapeutic or toxic effects. Hence, the developed computational tool will meet urgent demands from pharmaceutical and biomedical industries by accelerating drug discovery and development processes, by facilitating translational applications from bench to bedside, by increasing success rates of new pulmonary drug products, and by ultimately helping reduce health care burdens on society.

Agency
National Institute of Health (NIH)
Institute
Food and Drug Administration (FDA)
Type
Research Project--Cooperative Agreements (U01)
Project #
5U01FD005214-02
Application #
8924791
Study Section
Special Emphasis Panel (ZFD1-SRC (99))
Project Start
2014-09-10
Project End
2017-08-31
Budget Start
2015-09-01
Budget End
2016-08-31
Support Year
2
Fiscal Year
2015
Total Cost
$149,397
Indirect Cost
Name
Cfd Research Corporation
Department
Type
DUNS #
185169620
City
Huntsville
State
AL
Country
United States
Zip Code
35806
Kannan, Ravishekar Ravi; Singh, Narender; Przekwas, Andrzej (2018) A Quasi-3D compartmental multi-scale approach to detect and quantify diseased regional lung constriction using spirometry data. Int J Numer Method Biomed Eng 34:e2973
Kannan, Ravishekar Ravi; Singh, Narender; Przekwas, Andrzej (2018) A compartment-quasi-3D multiscale approach for drug absorption, transport, and retention in the human lungs. Int J Numer Method Biomed Eng 34:e2955
Kannan, Ravishekar; Chen, Z J; Singh, Narender et al. (2017) A quasi-3D wire approach to model pulmonary airflow in human airways. Int J Numer Method Biomed Eng 33:
Ravi Kannan, Ravishekar; Przekwas, A J; Singh, Narender et al. (2017) Pharmaceutical aerosols deposition patterns from a Dry Powder Inhaler: Euler Lagrangian prediction and validation. Med Eng Phys 42:35-47