12 - Drug delivery: Present, past, and future of medicine

Abstract

Drug delivery is a broad field of research on the development of novel materials or carrier systems for effective therapeutic delivery of drugs. The drug delivery may be steady, controlled, or targeted drug delivery and is commonly used methods. Since the advent of medical application systems, numerous drugs are being administered through various conventional drug delivery dosage forms such as solutions, lotions, mixtures, creams, pastes, ointments, powders, suppositories, suspensions, injectables, pills, immediate release capsules and tablets, etc., and so on to treat various diseases. Instances of newer devices with tremendously improved therapeutic potential include oral controlled release systems, fast dispersing dosage forms, liposomes, taste-masking systems, transdermal patches, aerosols, and site-specific delivery systems. This chapter is an update on some of the existing drug delivery technologies for oral controlled release, oral disintegrating dosage forms, test-masking formulations, liposomes, and targeting drug delivery and transdermal drug delivery. In addition, the past background and future direction of drug delivery research and development are also discussed in this chapter.