Drug delivery technology convenience

Despite tremendous innovations in the field of drug delivery technology, oral intake remains the preferred route of drug administration, for reasons of patient convenience and therapy compliance. Compounds intended for oral administration must have adequate biopharmaceutical properties in order to achieve therapeutic concentrations at the targeted site of action. 

Controlled drug delivery technology represents one of the most rapidly advancing areas of science. Such delivery systems offer numerous advantages over conventional dosage forms, including improved efficacy, reduced toxicity, improved patient compliance, and convenience. Therefore, all controlled release systems aim to improve the effectiveness of drug therapy and can be achieved via temporal and/or distribution control of dmg release. 

Giroux, M. (2005), Controlled Particle Dispersion Effective nasal delivery from a versatile, flexible technology platform, in Nasal Drug Delivery Rapid Onset via Convenient Route, ONdrugdelivery, pp. 13-15. 

Subcutaneous still remains the predictable and controllable route of delivery for peptides and macromolecules. However, there is need for greater convenience and lower cost for prolonged and repeated delivery. An example of refinement of subcutaneous delivery is MEDIPAD (Elan Pharmaceutical Technologies), which is a combination of patch concept and a sophisticated miniaturized pump operated by gas generation. It was described in the report on transdermal drug delivery. 

Nebulized drug delivery is possibly the most confused area of clinical practice, largely as a result of little or no regulatory control. New nebulizer technology offers greater convenience and portability and a significant increase in aerosol dose delivery. On one hand, this new, more efficient technology offers... 

Classes 1 and 2 are modifications of conventional nebulizing therapy in the perspective that these have operational times lasting nunutes or more. The last two classes introduce novel nebulizer technology that is fundamentally different in that delivery time for drug aerosol is very short, typically 1 or 2 s. Further, the latter two classes offer the convenience and portability more common to the DPI or pMDI than to traditional nebulizers. 

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