inhalers way to go

It seems inhaled medicines is the way to go according to this article

Posted a few hours ago

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21275441-23289,00.html

The drug developed by Vectura, which specialises in inhaled medicine, supposedly goes to work in five minutes. The company says it is close to entering Phase III clinical trials; if those are successful, the drug could be on the market some time after that.

Vectura, based in southern England, is at the cutting edge of a technology that some claim could revolutionise numerous areas of medicine.

Inhaled medicines, which offer a rapid route into the bloodstream without the inconvenience of an injection, are no longer just being used to treat asthma. They are now under development for a wider range of conditions, from cancer to osteoporosis, from hay fever to bird flu. The Australian-developed flu drug Relenza, marketed by GlaxoSmithKline, is one recently developed example already on the market.

"There really is a huge opportunity being created,'' Blackwell says.

Inhaled medicines have been used to treat asthma and other lung problems for decades, he says.

Global sales of such inhaled drugs to treat respiratory conditions are already worth about $US19 billion ($A23 billion) and are set to soar to as much as $US27 billion by 2010, driven by growing numbers of asthma sufferers and advances in diagnosis and technology.

But the potential of inhaled medicines stretches far beyond respiratory disease and it is this that really fires Blackwell's imagination.