Manufacturing Stable Bacteriophage Powders Using Thin Film Freeze-drying Technology

Recently, therapeutic uses of bacteriophage (phage) are gaining increased attention, yet common liquid phage formulations require cold chain storage that limits their potential use. Phage therapy is considered as an alternative to antibiotics for bacterial infections and more significantly a promising solution for the ever-increasing prevalence of multi-drug resistance (MDR) pathogens. One of the most promising applications of this therapy is to treat pulmonary bacterial infections. To efficiently deliver therapeutic phage to the lungs, phage formulations that allow for nebulization or dry powder inhalation are under active development. Several conventional particle engineering technologies have been applied in the development of dry powder inhalers (DPI), including spray drying, spray freeze drying, and atmospheric spray freeze drying, but these processes have their own disadvantages that limit their use with bacteriophage formulations and delivery. In our work, we hypothesize that thin film freeze-drying (TFFD) can be used to produce brittle matrix powders containing phage that may be suitable for delivery by several routes of administration, including by nebulization after reconstitution and by intranasal or inhalation delivery of the resulting dry powder. Here we selected T7 bacteriophage as our model phage in a preliminary screening study and found that a binary excipient matrix of sucrose and leucine at ratios of 80:20 or 75:25 by weight, protected bacteriophage from the stresses encountered during the TFFD process. In addition, we confirm that incorporating a buffer system during the TFFD process significantly improved the survival of phage during the ultra-rapid freezing step of the TFFD process and subsequent sublimation step in the lyophilization process. This preservation of phage bioactivity was significantly better than that observed for formulations without a buffer system. The titer loss of phage in standard SM buffer (Tris/NaCl/MgSO4/gelatin) containing formulation was as low as 0.2 log plaque forming units (pfu), which indicates that phage functionality was preserved after the TFFD process. Moreover, the presence of buffers markedly reduced the geometric particle sizes as determined by a dry dispersion method using laser diffraction, which indicates that the TFFD phage powder formulations were easily sheared into smaller powder aggregates, an ideal property for facilitating pulmonary delivery through DPIs. From these findings, we show that TFFD is a particle engineering method that can successfully produce phage containing powders that possess the desired properties for bioactivity and inhalation therapy.