Drug delivery systems future perspectives

Intimately related to these factors is the design of the device, formulation, and the interface with the patient. Much of the discussion below will focus on the implications of excipients on formulation challenges for inhaled aerosol products. This chapter summarizes excipients for pulmonary formulations from several perspectives (i) excipient selection based on principles of delivery, (ii) physicochemical requirements for excipients, and (iii) specific challenges for formulations faced with aerosol drug delivery systems, including (a) biological aspects, (b) microbiological aspects, (c) analytical issues, and (d) future prospects. 

More and more clinical trials in children are taking place and are improving the availability of ready-made specific paediatric drug delivery systems. Moreover, from the perspective of the new European Union regulations on medicines for children (European Commission, 2006), the number of trials will increase in the future. Meanwhile, extemporaneous dispensing, even though it should remain the last resort, is still an important activity for paediatric pharmacists and carers (Yeung et al., 2004). 

The purpose of this overview chapter is to provide perspectives in the current status and future prospects of controlled release drug delivery. This is accomplished by examining various delivery systems from a mechanistic point of view, exploring applications of these systems, and discussing relevant biopharmaceutical parameters. A major section of this book is devoted to fundamental issues and applications of transdermal and transmucosal delivery systems (Chapter 6,8,17-23). Other developing systems of future potential... 

Einally, the enormous number of possible combinations of oppositely charged polymeric components that can be involved in interpolyelectrolyte complexation offers attractive perspectives for the preparation of water-soluble multicompartment nanosized macromolecular co-assemblies with desired properties. We believe that such novel IPECs are very promising and will be in demand for their future applications in nanomedicine (e.g., gene and drug delivery, and diagnostic systems), biotechnology, and nanotechnology as nanocontainers, nanoreactors, and molecular templates for nanoelectronic devices. 

Jones, A. J. S., Nguyen, T. H., Cleland, J. L., and Pearlman, R., 1995, New dehvery systems for recombinant proteins— practical issues from proof of concept to clinic, in Trends and Future Perspectives in Peptide and Protein Drug Delivery (V. H. L. Lee, M. Ha da, and Y. Mizushima, eds.). Drug Targeting Dehvery Series, Harwood Academic Publishers, Amsterdam, pp. 57-67. 

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