Drug Carriers: Classification, Administration, Release Profiles, and Industrial Approach

Paolo Trucillo

doi:10.3390/pr9030470

Abstract

This work is aimed at providing a description of the complex world of drug carriers, starting from the description of this particular market in terms of revenue. Then, a brief overview of several types of conventional and innovative drug carrier systems has been included. The types of administration routes were also analyzed, with a critical and qualitative comment on drug release kinetics and drug profile shapes. Carriers were classified according to their ability to provide a prolonged and targeted release. The concept of the therapeutic window has been presented, providing advantages of having pulsed drug release to avoid side effects to target tissues. A critical comment on the use of conventional and innovative techniques for the production of drug carriers by large industrial companies has been proposed. As a final attempt for this work, an overall unique schematization of a drug carrier production process has been added, highlighting the necessity to create a strong double link among world-requested versatility of drug carriers for human applications and the newly developed industrial processes.

Highlights

Drug carriers are biocompatible tools for the transport of molecules for pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and nutraceutical applications [1], which are fields of great scientific and industrial interest
This work is aimed at providing a description of the complex world of drug carriers, starting from the description of this particular market in terms of revenue
It is true that the introduction of new drug formulations in the market requires a large amount of research and investment

Summary

Introduction

Drug carriers are biocompatible tools for the transport of molecules for pharmaceutical, cosmetic, and nutraceutical applications [1], which are fields of great scientific and industrial interest. According to the scientific report “Global Markets and Technologies for Advanced Drug Delivery Systems”, drug delivery systems generated $178 billion in 2015, while the estimation for 2020 was $231 billion, in terms of sold products, with an annual growth rate of 4.9%. This estimation was underestimated, since the market generated in 2020 was about $231 billion large, with an estimation of $310 billion by 2025, with an increase of 6.1%. Approximately 10,000 molecules are generally discarded before electing one as marketable [2,3,4,5]

Objectives

Findings

Discussion

Conclusion