Abstract

TRANSDERMAL DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM: A NOVEL APPROACH

K.Bala Murugan, P.Prem Kumar

ABSTRACT

Delivery of drugs through the skin has been always a challenging area for research due to barrier properties exhibit by the outermost layer of skin stratum corneum. In the last two decades, the transdermal drug delivery system has become a proven technology that offers significant clinical benefits over other dosage forms. Because transdermal drug delivery offers controlled as well as predetermined rate of release of the drug into the patient, it able to maintain steady state blood concentration. It’s a desirable form of drug delivery because of the obvious advantages e.g.convenient and pain-free self-administration for patients, avoidance of hepatic first-pass metabolism and the GI tract for poorly bioavailable drugs over other routes of delivery. The outlook for continued growth of the TDD market is very optimistic. Transdermal drug delivery has made an important contribution to medical practice, but has yet to fully achieve its potential as an alternative to oral delivery and hypodermic injections. This review emphasizes the three generations of transdermal drug delivery which start a new era of delivery of drug.

Keywords: Barrier, blood concentration, pain-free, self-administration, hypodermic injections