Drug Delivery
ADVANCED DELIVERY DEVICES - Getting It Right: The Importance of End-User Research in the Design of a New Drug Delivery System
Chris Evans believes that designing a drug delivery system that will truly resonate with patients requires insight into the unique experiences of those users by conducting research that will drive innovation in the design and development process to create a solution that works in a variety of situations.
SPECIAL FEATURE - Injectable Drug Delivery: Safer, Simpler, Smarter Devices
Contributor Cindy H. Dubin speaks with some of the leading companies operating in the injectables arena, and discovers this ever-evolving sector is witnessing some very specific and eye-opening trends that are affecting the market’s growth.
SPECIAL FEATURE - Patients & Physicians Desire Transdermal, Topical & Subcutaneous Delivery
Contributor Cindy H. Dubin recently interviewed several topical, transdermal, and subcutaneous product manufacturers to find out how they are working with patients and physicians to develop delivery systems that meet their needs for comfort, compliance, and more effective delivery.
BIOAVAILABIITY ENHANCEMENT - Innovators & Corporate Cultures: Symbiotic Relationships
Marshall Crew, PhD, explores some of the key features of people and organizations that lead to the innovations and products, and hopes that by example, insights can be acquired that will be useful in his colleagues respective organizations and that might ultimately lead to more innovation in the industry.
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW - 3M Drug Delivery Systems Division: A Partner to Tackle Market Complexities
Drug Development Executive: Cindy R. Kent, VP & General Manager of 3M DDSD, discusses her vision for the company and how developing trends are impacting the players in the pharmaceutical industry.
COLON-SPECIFIC DELIVERY - Toward Reliable Colon-Specific Drug Delivery
Wilfried Andrä, PhD, Pieter Saupe, and Matthias E. Bellemann, PhD, indicate the greatest obstacle on the road to targeted drug delivery in the GI tract was, until now, the lack of a practicable method to localize the capsule.
ADVANCED DELIVERY DEVICES - Incorporating Patient-Centric Design Into a Novel Anti-Needlestick Safety Device
Sarah Baer, MBA, says the market for biotechnology drugs continues to grow, and there is a need for pharmaceutical companies to offer injection devices that support both the complex properties of the biologic as well as the needs of the end-user who will be performing the injection.
INJECTABLE MICROEMULSIONS - Prolonged-Release Injectable Microemulsions: Opportunities for Pain Treatment
Rajesh Dubey, PhD, and Luigi G. Martini, FRPharmS, MBA, indicate available technologies do not support development of certain formulations to treat pain; however, microemulsions with their unique features, can provide a viable alternative to develop such formulations.
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW - 4P Therapeutics: Developing New & Innovative Transdermal Products
Drug Development Executive: Steven Damon, Founder of 4P Therapeutics, discusses his vision for the company and how 4P intends to create new and innovative transdermal products that meet the needs of patients, physicians, and payers.
SPECIAL FEATURE - Prefilled Syringes & Parenteral Contract Manufacturing - Product Differentiation Is Critical
Contributor Cindy H. Dubin speaks with several of these suppliers and manufacturers about the importance of customization and differentiation as the key to pharma companies staying competitive in the prefilled syringe space.
ADVANCED DELIVERY DEVICES - Wearable Bolus Injectors - A New Class of Patient-Friendly Drug Delivery Systems
Michael D. Hooven, MSME, indicates bolus injectors represent one of the most exciting new opportunities in the field of medical devices, and his company’s focus on developing innovative technology in combination with an intense emphasis on Human Factors has resulted in a system that is unique in a number of ways.
Wearable Injectors: A Small Device That Can Make a Big Difference for IV Infusion
By: Alan Shortall, Chairman and CEO of Unilife. As part of a campaign to draw attention to the rising costs of healthcare in the U.S.,…
INTRAORAL DELIVERY - Utilization of Intraoral Administration for Enablement & Enhancement of Drug Delivery – Highlights of Recent Commercial Products
Zhen Yang, PhD, and Yunhui Wu, PhD, highlight several commercialized intraoral formulations from a clinical pharmacokinetic perspective and reveal its mechanism for enablement or enhancement of drug delivery via intraoral administration.
BUCCAL DELIVERY - Dissolvable Film Format Evolves to Buccal Drug Delivery Applications
Scott D. Barnhart indicates the buccal and sublingual oral mucosa will continue to be an area of growing interest for drug delivery as researchers evaluate ways to improve bioavailability, patient compliance, and product lifecycle beyond tablet and injectable formats.
ANTIBODY DRUG CONJUGATES - ADC Development Using SMARTag(TM) Technology
Robyn M. Barfield, PhD, and David Rabuka, PhD, say that despite challenges, there has been progress in advancing complex compounds through clinical trials and successfully treating patients, and these bioconjugate compounds include a subset of molecules known as ADCs.
BIOAVAILABILITY ENHANCEMENT - Diffusion of Innovation & the Adoption of Solubilization Technologies
Marshall Crew, PhD, says that although diffusion processes of innovative products and services have been studied extensively for nearly 45 years, it seems reasonable that we might learn from others’ observations, and the frameworks they’ve developed to model diffusion of technology for the adoption of bioavailability platforms.
ADVANCED DELIVERY DEVICES - New Drug Delivery & Stabilization Platforms Gaining Global Interest
Sam de Costa, PhD, believes the launch of two stabilization and drug delivery platforms that have the potential to revolutionize the delivery of vaccines, therapeutics, and diagnostics, while significantly cutting costs, has attracted sharp interest from pharmaceutical and biotech companies around the world.
FIXED-DOSE COMBINATIONS - Fixed-Dose Combination Products – A Review (Part 1 – Introduction)
Tugrul T. Kararli, PhD, MBA; Kurt Sedo; and Josef Bossart, PhD; believe the pharmaceutical industry has been paying increasing attention to the potential of Fixed-Dose Combination products, and in a series of three articles, examine the past, present, and future of these products with the intent of understanding their whats and whys.
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW - Hermes Pharma: User-Friendly Dosage Forms, a Win-Win Situation for Patients & Pharma
Drug Development Executive: Dr. Thomas Hein, Director, Sales & Business Development at Hermes Pharma, discusses how user-friendly dosage forms help put patients first, their advantages for patients and pharmaceutical companies, as well as the challenges associated with their development and production.
EXECUTIVE INTERVIEW - Gerresheimer: Understanding Customer Requirements
Drug Development Executive: Andreas Schütte, Member of the Management Board, Plastics & Devices Division, discusses his important role in Gerresheimer’s divisional restructuring process, and how he is convinced the new structure better reflects customer requirements.
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.