2016 Volume 31 Issue 5 Pages 440-449
Diabetic patients require multiple daily injections of GLP-1 and/or insulin throughout their lifetime. Great effort for developing effective needle-free GLP-1 and insulin delivery technology, especially oral delivery, has been continued in worldwide, although these drugs are typical problematic peptide that is susceptible to degradation by enzymes and has low membrane permeability. Oral administration of biopharmaceuticals would offer not only the potential for improved medication adherence but also improved safety/efficacy in certain instances. Recently, large pharmaceutical companies have entered into partnerships with bioventure companies to develop noninvasive delivery systems for biopharmaceuticals and are energetically conducting clinical trials. This review provides an update on recent approaches that have shown promise in GLP-1 and insulin noninvasive delivery systems. In addition, the progress of basic research in needle-free delivery systems for biopharmaceuticals is discussed.
