DDL27 Reflections

Published on: 19th December 2016

The 27th Drug Delivery to the Lungs conference was held again this year in Edinburgh with DCA attending as a silver sponsor and exhibitor as well as having a poster selected for presentation.  The annual three-day event brings together all types of expertise from public bodies and pharmaceutical companies, to specialist consultant agencies, scientists and academics in this exciting and developing therapeutic and diagnostic field.

The conference programme was filled with a broad array of subject areas.  We have picked out a couple of lectures of particular affinity with DCA’s views and interests:

Dr Samantha Walker of Asthma UK presented highlights of the European Asthma Research & Innovation Partnership's agreement on their top 15 asthma R&D priorities, which emphasises progressing interest in three areas: Personalised treatments for severe asthma, Scalable diagnostics and Digital health.

Findings and insight from the recently published ‘CritiKal’ study were presented by Professor Henry Chrystyn, which clearly identifies human factors issues linked to high levels of poor control of asthma, and highlights the need to improve users’ and HCPs’ understanding, as well as improving the drug delivery devices, instructions and training materials.

Between sessions we enjoyed meeting delegates who visited the exhibition hall to catch up with colleagues and business friends as well as to find and meet new contacts.  The poster area provided an opportunity for a wide variety of relevant topics to be presented, including our own poster ‘a fresh look at designing respiratory health devices’ which attracted good interest and discussion.

Once again the combination of the venue, focused topics and experts in the field, along with excellent facilities and hospitality made DDL27 memorable and enjoyable.  We have already booked to be back again for DDL28.

Written by Chris Langley