MD TURBO DEVICE FOR METERED DOSE INHALERS SET TO LAUNCH

The newly FDA-approved MD Turbo, designed for use with metered dose inhalers to more reliably deliver a specific amount of medication to a user's lungs, is set to launch the second quarter of 2006, Accentia Biopharmaceuticals recently announced.

According to Accentia, the device addresses two major problems associated with metered dose inhalers: it coordinates the activation of the canister with the users breathing in and includes an electronic dose counter that shows how much medication is left in the canister. The electronic dose counter makes it easy to monitor how many doses have been delivered of a particular drug.

Worldwide, some 300 million people suffer from asthma or other pulmonary diseases. In order to deliver medicine to their lungs, most of these sufferers rely on metered-dose inhalers. While these inhalers deliver the drug to the patient's lungs directly, with onset of action within 15 minutes compared to the two to three hours it can take for oral medications to take effect, an estimated 70 percent of these users are still not using their inhalers properly. Studies have shown that when the inhaler is not used correctly, much of the intended drug dose is deposited in the back of the throat instead of being properly delivered to the lungs.