Recent Advances in Colon Drug Delivery Technology

Colon-targeted drug delivery technology; an approach of immense potential, has acquired tremendous significance for managing a number of ailments, particularly of the colon and for delivering therapeutic proteins and peptides systemically. The major hurdles for delivering drugs in the colonic region include absorption and degradation pathways in the upper gastrointestinal tract (GIT). To achieve a triumphant colonic delivery, the therapeutic agent must be protected from getting absorbed in the preliminary region of GIT to ensure its release in the proximal colon in a controlled way. The principle approaches, for instance, prodrug approach, pH sensitivity, timedependency (lag time), degradation by microbes, etc. have been effectively applied for obtaining colon targeted drug delivery. These approaches have accomplished immense relevance. Therefore, incessant attempts have been mainly focused on the design of colon targeted drug delivery systems having enhanced site-specificity along with the study of its versatile drug release kinetics to achieve diverse therapeutic requirements. The current manuscript illustrates the significance of different colon drug delivery systems and general considerations for designing colon targeting systems, including primary as well as novel approaches. Recent investigational studies carried out by scientific communities worldwide for the designing and preparation of various colon-targeted formulations along with their significant insights have been described. Recent patents, structure-property relationship and dissolution aspects pertaining to the colon-specific drug delivery have also been depicted.