Drug Delivery
WEBINAR ON DEMAND: Advantages of Carbopol® Polymers in Oral Formulations
In this video, the Lubrizol team together with the IMCD US team takes you through formulation aspects of Carbopol® polymers as well as the results of a case study on an Acetaminophen oral suspension formulation.
WEBINAR - ABISOL Emulsion Preconcentrate Kit & ABISORB-DC Excipient System for Tableting Lipids
ABITEC Technical Business Director, John Tillotson, RPh, PhD, discusses ABITEC’s latest products: The ABISOL Emulsion Preconcentrate kit for the easy formulation of emulsified drug delivery systems and the….
Lonza Launches Innovaform Accelerator, the New Innovation & Formulation Center in Colmar (FR)
Lonza, a global manufacturing partner to the pharmaceutical, biotech, and nutraceutical markets, recently inaugurated its new facility at the Colmar (FR) site. The new Innovaform…
Tiziana Life Sciences Announces $4-Million Grant to Study Anti-CD3 in Alzheimer’s Disease
Tiziana Life Sciences, Ltd. recently announced the National Institutes of Health (NIH), National Institute on Aging have awarded a $4-million grant to Dr. Howard Weiner…
Molex Announces Agreement to Acquire the Vectura Group Limited, Expanding its Drug Delivery Capabilities in Inhalation
Molex, a parent to Phillips Medisize, a leader in the design, engineering, and manufacturing of pharmaceutical drug delivery, in vitro diagnostic and medtech devices, recently…
Serán Bioscience Announces $200-Million Strategic Growth Transaction & Plans for New Commercial Facility
Serán Bioscience recently announced a strategic growth transaction of more than $200 million. Bain Capital Life Sciences led the transaction, while existing investor Vivo Capital…
Vivtex Enters New Research Agreement With Equillium to Develop GI-targeted Formulations for its First-in-Class Oral, Bi-Specific Peptide Therapy
Vivtex Corporation recently announced it has entered a research and licensing agreement with Equillium, Inc., a clinical-stage biotechnology company developing novel therapeutics to treat severe…
Enable Injections Announces Agreement with Sobi to Develop & Distribute Aspaveli in Combination With enFuse
Enable Injections, Inc. and Swedish Orphan Biovitrum AB (Sobi) recently announced an international development and distribution agreement for the enFuse Injector, for the subcutaneous delivery…
TFF Pharmaceuticals Announces Positive Preclinical Data From Bivalent Universal Influenza Vaccine Candidates
TFF Pharmaceuticals, Inc recently announced positive preclinical data advancing a multivalent universal influenza vaccine manufactured by TFF to protect against seasonal and pandemic viruses. The…
Evonik Starts Operation of New Spray Drying Facility for Pharmaceutical Oral Excipients
Evonik has officially opened a new facility for drying aqueous dispersions of EUDRAGIT polymers at its site in Darmstadt. The new double-digit million-euro excipient manufacturing…
Serán More Than Doubles Clinical Manufacturing Capacity in Bend, OR
Serán BioScience, LLC, the science-driven drug development partner, recently announced it has completed an expansion to increase the number of process manufacturing suites at its…
SPECIAL FEATURE - Injection Devices: From Pens & Autoinjectors to Pills, Sprays & Capsules, Injections Become More Efficient
Contributor Cindy H. Dubin reports on innovative and promising injection technologies that are ever more user friendly, versatile, precise, and life-saving.
DRUG DELIVERY - Viewing Lipid Nanoparticle Delivery Technology Through the Lens of a CRDMO
Lu Tian, PhD, says the complexity of LNP formulations demands diverse and integrated capabilities for development – incorporating lipids, oligonucleotides, small molecules, and sometimes antibodies or ligands, and thus it requires a cohesive approach.
SILICON-STABILIZED HYBRID LNPS - Next-Generation Delivery of RNA Therapeutics
Suzanne Saffie-Siebert, PhD, Michael Welsh, PhD, Nissim Torabi-Pour, PhD, and Flavia M. Sutera, PhD, review current shortcomings, as well as some accompanying manufacturing challenges, and will show how they can be addressed by SiSaf’s silicon-stabilized hybrid LNPs.
Kymanox & SHL Medical Enter Non-Exclusive Strategic Partnership Agreement to Support Delivery of Modern Medicines
Kymanox Corporation and SHL Medical AG recently announced they have signed a non-exclusive strategic partnership agreement. This collaboration establishes a reciprocal preferred partnership between the…
Avanti Polar Lipids Becomes Avanti Research, a Croda Brand
Avanti Polar Lipids, a global leader in lipids, recently announced its renewed offering for researchers and its transformation to Avanti Research. This marks another exciting…
West Completes $80-Million Manufacturing Expansion to Support Diabetes & Obesity Treatments for Patients Worldwide
West Pharmaceutical Services, Inc. recently announced it has completed an $80-million capacity expansion at its Contract Manufacturing site in Grand Rapids, MI. This investment will…
Purdue Researchers Take Inspiration From Viruses to Improve Delivery of Nucleic Acid-Based Therapies to Cancer Cells
A researcher in Purdue University’s College of Science is developing a patent-pending platform technology that mimics the dual-layer structure of viruses to deliver nucleic acid (NA)-based…
ENA Respiratory Progresses Phase 1b Study of its Dry Powder Formulation of Intranasal Innate Immunomodulator
ENA Respiratory recently announced it has advanced its Phase 1b study of its dry powder formulation of INNA-051 to enable clinical progression of an improved…
Medicus Pharma Announces First Patient Randomized in Phase 2 Trial of SKNJCT-003 for the Treatment of Nodular Basal Cell Carcinoma in Adults
Medicus Pharma Ltd. recently announced the enrollment of the first patient in its Phase 2 clinical trial SKNJCT-003 for the treatment of nodular basal cell…
What are Drug Delivery Systems?
Drug delivery systems are engineered technologies for the targeted delivery and/or controlled release of therapeutic agents. The practice of drug delivery has changed significantly in the past few decades and even greater changes are anticipated in the near future. Drug delivery includes but is not limited to oral delivery, gene/cell delivery, topical/transdermal delivery, inhalation deliver, parenteral delivery, respiratory delivery, capsules, particle design technology, buccal delivery, etc.
The Evolution of Drug Delivery Systems
Drug delivery systems have greatly evolved over the past 6 decades. In the past 12 years specifically, there have been huge advancements in drug delivery technology. For instance, advanced medication delivery systems, such as transdermal patches, are able to deliver a drug more selectively to a specific site, which frequently leads to easier, more accurate, and less dosing overall. Devices such as these can also lead to a drug absorption that is more consistent with the site and mechanism of action. There are other drug delivery systems used in both medical and homecare settings that were developed because of various patient needs and researchers continue to develop new methods.
Drug Delivery System Market Size
The pharmaceutical drug delivery market size is studied on the basis of route of administration, application, and region to provide a detailed assessment of the market. On the basis of route of administration, it is segmented into oral delivery, pulmonary delivery, injectable delivery, nasal delivery, ocular delivery, topical delivery, and others.
The estimated global market size of drug delivery products was $1.4 trillion in 2020. Unfortunately, 40% of marketed drugs and 90% of pipeline drugs (mostly small molecules) are poorly soluble in water, which makes parenteral, topical, and oral delivery difficult or impossible. In relation, poor solubility often leads to low drug efficacy. Add in the fact that many other hurdles exist in the form of drug loading, stability, controlled release, toxicity, and absorption – it’s not hard to understand the difficulties in bringing new drug products to market. Additionally, biopharmaceuticals (proteins, peptides, nucleic acids, etc) and combination drug products possess many of these same problematic obstacles that affect efficacy. These challenges, coupled with the complexity and diversity of new pharmaceuticals, have fueled the development of a novel drug delivery platforms that overcome a great many bioavailability and delivery obstacles. By leveraging these platforms, pharmaceutical and biopharmaceutical companies can improve dosing accuracy, efficacy, and reproducibility in their drug discovery and drug delivery research.
Drug Delivery System Demand
The demand for pharmaceutical products worldwide is only going to increase in the coming years, as old and emerging diseases continue to threaten the well-being of people globally. Drug discovery efforts are expected to intensify, generating a large variety of active compounds with vastly different structures and properties. However, it is well known that despite tremendous output of the drug discovery process, the success rate of a candidate compound becoming an approved drug product is extremely low. The majority of candidate compounds are discarded due to various hurdles in formulation and preclinical testing (such as issues with solubility, stability, manufacturing, storage, and bioavailability) before even entering into clinical studies. Therefore, advances in formulation and drug delivery, especially the development of new and versatile biomaterial platforms as effective excipients, may salvage many “difficult,” otherwise triaged, drug compounds, and significantly enhance their chance of becoming viable products. Furthermore, breakthroughs in biomaterial platform technologies will also facilitate life cycle management of existing APIs through reformulation, repurposing of existing APIs for new indications, and development of combination products consisting of multiple APIs.