Product development with the use of oral drug controlled release technology and current trend

Abstract

Drug products with oral drug controlled release technology play a center role in the market of Drug Delivery System (DDS) and greatly contribute to drug therapy. Drug product functions from medical practices are being diversified. Therefore, demands for development of a wide variety of products in small quantities will be forecasted in the pharmaceutical sector. With advance in science, oral drug controlled release technology is being transformed from specialty to commodity. A variety type of oral drug controlled release technologies are found in the world. Bioequivalence to original oral drug controlled release products can be shown with the technologies. In the past, oral drug controlled release technologies have provided not only functional values based on pharmaceutical technologies but also customer values from user needs. Prolongation of pharmacological effect, reduction of dose frequency, prevention of the risk of adverse effects with steep drug absorption, and so on, have been considered as the conventional product values of oral drug controlled release technologies. For the future, novel product values should be alternatively created for oral drug controlled release technology in order to continue contribution to the drug therapy. In this report, current development of the oral drug controlled release formulations is overviewed. New product value creation with oral controlled release technology will be introduced in terms of drug abuse protection, adherence improvement, drug repositioning, and reformulation.