Drug delivery

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Drug delivery is the method or process of administering a pharmaceutical compound to achieve a therapeutic effect in humans or animals.^[1][2] Drug delivery technologies are patent protected formulation technologies that modify drug release profile, absorption, distribution and elimination for the benefit of improving product efficacy and safety, as well as patient convenience and compliance.^[3] Most common methods of delivery include the preferred non-invasive peroral (through the mouth), topical (skin), transmucosal (nasal, buccal/sublingual, vaginal, ocular and rectal) and inhalation routes.^[4][5] Many medications such as peptide and protein, antibody, vaccine and gene based drugs, in general may not be delivered using these routes because they might be susceptible to enzymatic degradation or can not be absorbed into the systemic circulation efficiently due to molecular size and charge issues to be therapeutically effective. For this reason many protein and peptide drugs have to be delivered by injection. For example, many immunizations are based on the delivery of protein drugs and are often done by injection.

Current efforts in the area of drug delivery include the development of targeted delivery in which the drug is only active in the target area of the body (for example, in cancerous tissues) and sustained release formulations in which the drug is released over a period of time in a controlled manner from a formulation. Types of sustained release formulations include liposomes, drug loaded biodegradable microspheres and drug polymer conjugates.

The Magnetic-Capsule is a new experimental drug delivery system currently being tested in clinical trials. The Magnetic Capsule is a segmented metal capsule with parts held together by magnetic forces. Once the capsule is filled with test material and swallowed, its way through the GIT can be monitored with magnetic sensors on a computer monitor. As soon as the Magnetic Capsule has reached the area of interest, the magnetic field is destroyed by pushing a buttom and the test material is delivered for resorption.

[edit] Drug delivery companies

• aaiPharma
• Abraxis Bioscience Inc.
• Access Pharmaceuticals Inc.
• ACG Worldwide
• Acrux Ltd.
• Antares Pharma Inc.
• Docoop Technologies Ltd.
• The Magnetic Capsule
• Medincell S.A.
• Medtronic Inc.
• Nanomi
• 3M Drug Delivery Systems

[edit] References

• M. N. V. Ravi Kumar (2008), Handbook of Particulate Drug Delivery (2-Volume Set), American Scientific Publishers. ISBN 1-58883-123-X

[edit] External links

• Drug Delivery Technology for Peptides and Proteins
• Drug Delivery Technology
• The 10th US-Japan Symposium on Drug Delivery Systems
• Article in Chemical and Engineering News
• Drug Delivery News and Analysis
• Drug Delivery Reports
• Nanotechnology in Drug Delivery