What if spraying your nose can transport the drug to its destination in your body and you don't require to pop those pills? Researchers from the University of Southern Denmark have found a new and more efficient ways of transporting drugs to the brain.
"People with brain diseases are often given huge amounts of drugs. During a long life, or if you have a chronic disease, this may become problematic for your health," said Massimiliano Di Cagno, an assistant professor at the University of Southern Denmark.
To find a better way, he and his colleagues turned their attention to the nose -- specifically the nasal wall and the slimy mucosa that covers it.
They now needed a vehicle for drug delivery through the nose.
Di Cagno tested a natural sugar polymer and found that this particular polymer was not only capable of carrying the drugs through the nasal wall but also - and most importantly - releasing the drug where it was needed.
"This is an important breakthrough which will bring us closer to delivering brain drugs by nasal spray," Di Cagno noted.
The next major challenge that confronts the researchers now is to secure a steady supply of drugs over a long period.
"This is especially important if you are a chronic patient and need drug delivery every hour or so," Di Cagno added.
When a patient sprays a solution with active drugs into his nose cavity, the solution will hit the nasal wall and travel from here through the nasal wall to the relevant places in the brain.
"We now need to invent some kind of glue that will help the solution stick to the nasal wall and not run down and out of the nose within minutes," the researchers emphasised in a paper published in the International Journal of Pharmaceutics.
