Drug Delivery Systems Market Research Reports & Industry Analysis

The method by which a drug is delivered can have a significant effect on its efficacy. Some drugs have an optimum concentration range within which maximum benefit is derived, and concentrations above or below this range can be toxic or produce no therapeutic benefit. Slow progress in the efficacy of the treatment of severe diseases suggests a growing need for a multidisciplinary approach to the delivery of therapeutics to targets in tissues. From this, new ideas on controlling the pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, non-specific toxicity, immunogenicity, biorecognition, and efficacy of drugs were generated. These new strategies, often called drug delivery systems (DDS), are based on interdisciplinary approaches that combine polymer science, pharmaceutics, and molecular biology. A drug delivery system can be administered in a variety of ways. These routes of administration can be transdermal or transmucosal, or through the gastrointestinal tract and is often termed enteral or enteric administration. Many drugs as tablets, capsules, or drops are taken orally. The choice of a delivery route is determined by patient acceptability, the properties of the drug, its access to a disease location, or effectiveness. The most important drug delivery route is the peroral route. An increasing number of drugs are protein- and peptide-based. They offer the greatest potential for more effective therapeutics, but they do not easily cross mucosal surfaces and biological membranes; and are easily degraded and at present, protein drugs are usually administered by injection.