Colon Targeted Drug Delivery: A Review on Novel Approaches

Abstract

Both local and systemic delivery of drugs can take place in colon. There are day by day new developments in field of colon specific drug delivery system. Colonic drug delivery has gained importance for the delivery of the drugs for the treatment of local diseases associated with the colon like Crohn’s disease, ulcerative colitis, etc. It has also used for the systemic delivery of proteins, therapeutic peptides, anti-asthmatic drugs, antihypertensive drugs and anti-diabetic agents drugs. Thereby reducing the systemic side effects treatment can be made effective if the drugs can be targeted directly into the colon. A drug need to be protected from degradation to achieve successful colon targeted drug delivery, release and absorption in upper portion of the GI tract and then to be ensured controlled release in the proximal colon. pH-dependent systems, time-dependent systems, and microbial triggered systems are the usual methods for delivering the drug to the last part of Gastro Intestinal tract. Pressure controlled colonic delivery capsules, CODESTM, and the osmotic controlled drug delivery are the newer technologies namely which are having in vivo site specificity, and feasibility of manufacturing process. The merits and demerits, novel approaches in the colon targeted drug delivery, clinical evaluation techniques and some information on the marketed dosage forms are one focused on in this review. To overcome pervious method’s limitations new systems and technologies have been developed for colon targeting. Colon targeting still need more innovative work even tough it holds a great potential and there are new developments in field of colon specific drug delivery system day by day.