For the treatment and prevention of respiratory diseases, pharmaceutical aerosols provide a highly targeted therapeutic delivery approach that is capable of maximizing therapeutic concentrations at the site of action and minimizing concentrations (and the associated potential side effects) throughout the rest of the body.  In addition, when considering next-generation therapies, such as proteins and peptides (e.g., monoclonal antibodies), nucleic acids (e.g., mRNA vaccines) and other biologics for treating lung diseases, direct delivery to the lungs through aerosol carriers is the most viable option and can attain near-complete initial delivery efficiency.  In contrast, ingestion, injection or infusion of these next-generation therapies (as with monoclonal antibodies) delivers only a small fraction to the lungs (for example, 1% of the initial dose) while the rest of the body is exposed to the remaining majority of the therapeutic (which often provides no benefit and may cause side effects).  In addition to targeting the lungs, the effectiveness of different inhaled therapies can be further increased by targeting the disease specific regions of the lungs, which a specialty of the AIM Lab.

For treating systemic and neurological conditions with medications that have low oral bioavailability, inhaled or nasally targeted aerosol delivery provides convenient and easy-to-administer access to the systemic circulation, without the need for needles and injections.  Additional advantages of inhaled therapeutics for systemic and neurological applications include the avoidance of first pass metabolism (protecting both the therapeutic and the liver), very rapid onset of action (for example, as need with seizure rescue medications) and the potential for enhanced therapeutic concentrations within the central nervous system (CNS) with nasally targeted delivery.