Recent Patents on Drug Delivery & Formulation - Volume 7, Issue 2, 2013

It is well established that several diseases exhibit circadian behavior, following the relevant rhythm of the physiological functions of the human body. Their study falls in the fields of chronobiology and chronotherapeutics, the latter being essentially the effort of timely matching the treatment with the disease expression, in order to maximize the therapeutic benefits and minimize side effects. Pulsatile drug delivery is one of the pillars of chronopharmaceutics, achieved through dosage form design that allows programmable release of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) to follow the disease’s time profile. Its major characteristic is the presence of lag phases, followed by drug release in a variety of rates, immediate, repeated or controlled. The scope of this review is to summarize the recent literature on pulsatile oral drug delivery systems and provide an overview of the ready to use solutions and early stage technologies, focusing on the awarded and pending patents in this technical field during the last few years.

This review presents the current status in the use of liposomes as non-viral vector for nucleic acid delivery in cancer immunotherapy. Currently, cancer treatment uses surgery, radiotherapy and/or chemotherapy. The search for new strategies to improve the efficiency of conventional treatments is a challenge, and biological therapy has emerged as a promising technique. Immunotherapy is a branch of biological therapy that uses the body’s immune system to detect and destroy cancer cells. One immunotherapy approach is the activation of T lymphocytes from cancer patients by dendritic cells (DCs) loaded with tumor antigens. Among different antigens, mRNA coding the tumor antigens is advantageous due to its capability to be amplified from small amounts of tumor tissue, its safety because it is easily degraded without integrating into the host genome, and it does not need to cross the nuclear barrier to exert its biological activity. Nanotechnology is an approach to deliver tumor antigens into DCs. Specially; we review the use of nanoliposomes in the field of cancer therapy because cationic liposomes can be used as non-viral vectors for mRNA delivery. Aside from the promise of liposomes, the development of scalable processes and facilities to the use this individualized therapy is still a challenge. Thus, we also present the recent techniques used for liposome production. In this context, the integration between technological knowledge in the production of cationic liposomes and immunotherapy using mRNA may contribute to the development of new strategies for cancer therapy.

Many new drugs have been discovered in pharmaceutical industry and exposed their surprised potential therapeutic effects. Unfortunately, these drugs possess low absorption and bioavailability since their solubility limitation in water. Solid dispersion (SD) is the current technique gaining so many attractions from scientists due to its effect on improving solubility and dissolution rate of poorly water-soluble drugs. A number of patents including the most recent inventions have been undertaken in this review to address various respects of this strategy in solubilization of poorly watersoluble drugs including type of carriers, preparation methods and view of technologies used to detect SD properties and mechanisms with the aim to accomplish a SD not only effective on enhanced bioavailability but also overcome difficulties associated with stability and production. Future prospects are as well discussed with an only hope that many developments and researches in this field will be successfully reached and contributed to commercial use for treatment as much as possible.

Preparations of pulmonary surfactant are used for the treatment of respiratory distress syndrome in a newborn. Their applicability as a method of routine for lung diseases beyond the neonatal period is questionable. Some publications from the former Soviet Union (SU) have reported on successful surfactant therapy of ARDS in children and adults as well as for inhalation injuries, pneumonia, and tuberculosis. Bronchoscopy was used and recommended as a method of surfactant delivery for ARDS, some types of pneumonia and tuberculosis. Manufacturing processes of surfactant preparations from bovine lung and amniotic fluid, described by Russian patents, and bronchoscopy as a delivery mode are discussed here. A concluding point is that some reports from the former SU about administration of exogenous surfactant in pulmonary conditions, excluding those with primary surfactant deficiency, are only partly confirmed by the international literature.

Tuberculosis has remained, unambiguously, a significant health care problem since long times, particularly in developing countries. The endeavoring battle against multi drug resistant TB, multiple dosing, their prominent side effects and bioavailability hiccups related to fixed dose combinations has undeniably become a Herculean task indicating rigorous research requirement in anti TB drug therapy. In view of the fact that patenting a drug molecule, a drug delivery system or a formulation has been very fruitful for the growth and sustainment of pharmaceutical industry, a meticulous review of recent developments, providing a balanced view on merits/demerits, will facilitate researchers to update themselves, thereby focusing their research in more relevant areas to furnish desired quality traits. This article reviews the present scenario in terms of drug delivery approaches for TB chemotherapy. The review encompasses and summarizes recent patents and advances on variegated facets of dosage forms, together with from conventional solid oral to novel controlled release oral formulations and additionally alternative weapons for anti TB drug delivery. A critical review of multidisciplinary approaches to boost anti TB therapy may facilitate the scientists to resolve existing technological gaps.

Osmotic drug delivery system utilizes the principles of osmotic pressure for the controlled delivery of active pharmaceutical ingredient at a predetermined zero order rate. An appropriately designed osmotic drug delivery is not influenced by different physiologic factors but affected by pharmaceutical factors, which play a pivotal role in modulating the release of drug. The present review critically discussed about the factors affecting drug release from the delivery system such as solubility, osmotic pressure, size of delivery orifice and membrane characteristics. The major arena of this review is to highlight about the different types of osmotic drug delivery systems such as implantable, single chamber, multi chamber osmotic pumps and several specialized type of osmotic pumps. Apart from that this system is a versatile technology useful for delivery of drugs with varying solubility. The additional properties of this delivery system can also exhibit pulsatile release, burst release and colon targeting of drug. Because of its versatility, this above system seems to have promising approach which can result in improved safety profile, stable drug concentrations, uniform drug effects and dosing frequency. Current review also briefly discussed about the patents related to delivery of drugs by the principle osmotic pressure.