Welland, UK: Delegates to the Academy of Pharmaceutical Sciences Inhalation conference in March will have the opportunity to see the FT4 Powder Rheometer on the Freeman Technology stand and also to learn more about its application to the study of inhalation products, through contributed presentations and posters. With the theme of ‘The changing face of inhalation - fit for the future’, this year’s conference takes place from 23 to 25 March 2009 at the University of Nottingham in the UK.

As part of his presentation on the Relationship between powder fluidisation and performance of dry powder inhaler formulations, Dr Jag Shur from the Department of Pharmacy and Pharmacology at the University of Bath will describe work performed using the FT4 in these studies. The research group at Bath will also present a number of related posters.

Powders can exhibit an extremely wide range of behaviours and during activation of a DPI, aeration transforms a small stationary bed into a fluid cloud of powder that is easily inhaled by the patient. This sensitivity of powders to air content is widely recognised but there are many other variables that influence a powder’s behaviour, and indeed, which affect its sensitivity to air. Primary variables such as particle shape, size and distribution, and surface texture are important, but other external parameters have an impact, humidity being a prime example. This complexity makes the multi-faceted powder characterization provided by the FT4 much more informative than single number approaches that examine just one aspect of performance.

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