Abstract

ADVANCES IN DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS

Varuna P. Panicker, Anu Gopalakrishnan

ABSTRACT

Drug delivery system plays an important role in deciding the efficacy of a drug. Drugs should be administered in an optimum concentration range for producing maximum therapeutic effect. Dosage above or below the therapeutic dosage may be toxic or produce no therapeutic effect. Now a days most of the drugs are protein or peptide based which will be easily degraded or destroyed by the biological system, if administered by common per oral route. Drug targeting could be possible by two major mechanisms (a) passive (b) active targeting. Controlled drug delivery systems like vesicles, micellar solutions as well as nanoparticle dispersions showed great promises as drug carrier systems. Hydrogels and drug loaded erythrocytes are one of the growing and potential systems for the delivery of drugs and enzymes.

Keywords: Drug delivery systems (DDS)