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World Asthma Day 2025

In celebration of World Asthma Day 2025 (6th May 2025), the Global Initiative for Asthma (GINA) has chosen the theme “Make Inhaled Treatments Accessible for ALL”, emphasizing the need to ensure that people with asthma can access inhaled medications that are essential both for controlling the underlying disease and treating attacks.[45]

Doctors and allied health care professionals are called upon to ensure that every person with asthma is prescribed evidence-based, essential, inhaled corticosteroid-containing medication in addition to (or in combination with) reliever medication, to prevent the continuing avoidable morbidity and mortality from asthma.[45]

Policy makers, governments, payers, pharmaceutical industry manufacturers and suppliers are called upon to increase their awareness of the continuing preventable morbidity and mortality associated with asthma in spite of the existence of evidence based, highly effective management of asthma. GINA has called on everyone to increase their efforts to “Make Inhaled Treatments Accessible for ALL”, in all countries throughout the world.[45]

Increasing Access to Inhaled Medicines for COPD and Asthma campaign

The Forum of International Respiratory Societies (FIRS) launched the increasing access to inhaled medicines for chronic obstructive disease (COPD) and asthma campaign on World Asthma Day.[46] The aim of this campaign is to raise awareness about the wide gaps in access to inhaled medicines that are causing a massive burden of suffering for the hundreds of millions living with chronic lung diseases across the world, and significant economic costs.[46]

The FIRS campaign is calling on key stakeholders to increase access to inhaled medicines for COPD and asthma by [46]:

Including the latest evidence-based inhalers in all global and national COPD and asthma treatment guidelines,
Improving the availability of recommended inhaled medicines
Reducing inhaler prices,
Increasing training for primary healthcare providers to diagnose and manage COPD and asthma,
Investing in campaigns to increase community awareness of COPD and asthma, and to destigmatize use of inhalers.

The campaign is targeting Heads of State, Ministers of Health and Finance, and global health leaders who will convene at the 4th High-level Meeting of the United Nations (UN) General Assembly on the Prevention and Control of Noncommunicable Diseases (NCDs) to agree a program of action.[46]

HFO-1234ze approved in UK

The Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency (MHRA) has approved a low-carbon version of Trixeo Aerosphere, a triple combination inhaler for adults with moderate to severe COPD, which uses the propellant, hydrofluoroolefin (HFO)-1234ze(E), and is just as safe and effective as the previous version.[47]

The newly approved version of Trixeo Aerosphere replaces the propellant hydrofluoroalkane (HFA)-134a with HFO-1234ze(E) – a fluorinated gas with near-zero global warming potential. The propellant itself is not an active medicine but is used to deliver the inhaled dose.[47]

This new version will be available in the UK from the second half of 2025. In the meantime, the current version of Trixeo Aerosphere will continue to be available to patients.[47]