Vaccine Delivery

This chapter reviews how currently available commercial vaccines are formulated and administered to patients and how new vaccines may be administered in the future using novel delivery devices and formulation technologies. Many new vaccine delivery technologies are being evaluated both in the laboratory and the clinic to provide more targeted delivery of vaccines to specific tissues, using either injection (ID, IM, SC) or oral, nasal, or even buccal or aerosol delivery. It has been demonstrated that administration of the vast majority of inactivated or recombinant vaccines by the oral route does not elicit protective immune responses, often due to loss and instability of various vaccine antigens. For devices to deliver drug powders, many different powder/aerosol technologies are available and are classified into three general categories: pressurized metered-dose inhalers (pMDIs), dry powder inhalers (DPIs), and nebulizers.