Pulsatile Drug Delivery System (PDDS): A Cronotherapeutic Approach for Optimum Therapy

Abstract

Now a day’s PDDS are gaining more attraction and importance especially for the disease follow circadian rhythms. Some chronic disease like rheumatoid arthritis, asthma, hypercholesterolemia, hyper acidity and cardio vascular diseases where peak symptoms tends to follow a 24 hour cycle called circadian rhythms. Optimum therapy of these diseases demands a drug delivery system where Cmax of the drug achieve exactly at the time of peak of the disease. This is only possible by chronotherapeutic approach i.e. pulsatile drug delivery system. This delivery system not only releases the right amount of drug at the right time but also overcome the other challenges like drug tolerance and over dose associated with traditional sustained or extended release drug delivery system. Drugs under goes extensive first pass metabolism, degradation in gastric acid medium, having biological tolerance and targeted to distal parts of GIT are suitable candidates for PDDS. It has many advantages like pre-programmed delayed-release, multiple dosing option, reduce drug loss, less drug interaction and improve patient compliance etc There are various technologies of PDDS like C O D A S ® ,O R O S ® , DIFFUCAPS ®,3D Printing, PULSINCAPTM are already available in the market. The current work is focused on the requirements, advantages, disadvantages and a review on various drugs and polymers used to develop PDDS in current & past decades. The study revealed that, PDDS has a tremendous scope and can play a vital role in the optimum treatment of many chronic diseases which follows circadian rhythm.