Abstract
The drug delivery technology has advanced over the past six decades. It started in early 1950s with the introduction of the first sustained release formulation. The first generation (1G) (1950–80) of drug delivery was focused mainly on developing controlled-release formulations for oral and transdermal systems in clinical applications. Further, the second generation (2G) of drug delivery technologies (1980–2010) highlighted development of biodegradable sustained release depot formulations with controllable drug release kinetics for a longer period of time. However, 2G has not been successful in generating clinical products due to its inability to address the biological barriers. In the 21st century, third generation (3G) of drug delivery technologies have been developed. The 3G (2010 onward) drug delivery systems focused on addressing the physicochemical and biological barriers issues. The physicochemical problems usually foster from poor water solubility of drugs, large molecular weight, and complication of controlling drug release kinetics whereas biological barriers to overcome are the distribution of drug to a specific target in the body, which limits their functions for in vivo application. Hence forward, the drug delivery field needs to take a bold step in fabricating the future drug delivery formulations based on today’s necessities, and develop essential innovations for tomorrow. Throughout the 3G drug delivery system evolution particularly for nanocarriers, there are three key technologies namely (1) PEGylation, (2) active targeting to specific cells by ligands conjugated to the DDS, or (3) passive targeting to solid tumors via the enhanced permeation and retention (EPR) effect were reported. These technologies have resulted in many successes and exciting clinical products in 2000s. Discussion on the various types of polymers nanocarriers and finally, possible future directions for research on polymers nanocarriers for drug delivery system will be presented in this chapter.
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