Advanced Materials and Technologies for Modified Drug Release Systems

Dear Colleagues,

Modified-release biomedical formulations are designed to control the pattern of drug pharmacokinetics by optimizing its release rate, thus ensuring and maintaining an active concentration in the bloodstream and/or at the target sites. Such engineered dosage forms can enhance drug stability and water solubility and improve drugs’ biopharmaceutical properties, such as adsorption and permeability, which are common drawbacks for the pharmaceutical industry. This can lead to overall improvement of therapeutic efficacy and possibly attenuation of toxic effects. Reduced dosing frequency is often a collateral relevant benefit to patients and production costs of these formulations.

The main mechanisms to control drug release embrace dispersion in inorganic, polymeric or lipid matrices, coated reservoir systems, complexation, and inclusion into macromolecular carriers. Multi-particulate, micro-tablets, and pelleted dosage forms, in which single elements are coated to acquire peculiar release profiles, are also available on the market. Prolongation of gastric delivery or slowing of gastrointestinal transit can be achieved by planning floating tablets or muco-adhesive devices, or gastro-protected solid formulations.

A delay or an acceleration of drug release can also be of paramount importance for other sites, including cutaneous, ocular, nasal, and other mucosal routes of administration, such as implants, in situ forming gels, or micro- and nanostructured carriers. Additionally, ensuring a systemic pharmacologically effective drug concentration for a prolonged period of time after injections is often required to improve patients’ compliance and therapeutic performance.

Finally, it should be noted that novel modified-release dosage forms have attracted renewed interest and can enhance the clinical value of ‘old’ drugs, whose inappropriate physicochemical properties or stability or pharmacokinetic problems limit their clinical effectiveness. Drug repositioning can also be achieved through these strategies.

This Special Issue of Applied Sciences on “Advanced Materials and Technologies for Modified Drug Release Systems” wishes to embrace the multidisciplinary field of innovative drug release and targeting formulations, to present more recent advances in their design, physicochemical and technological characterization—with particular focus on stability issues— and in vitro/ex vivo/in vivo biological assessment. Colleagues are invited to contribute original research, communications and highly focused review papers concerning new (bio)materials, approaches, and production technologies aimed at preparing modified drug release systems for the pharmaceutical, biotechnological, and biomedical fields, regarding both ‘conventional’ routes of administration and innovative therapeutic strategies.

Prof. Dr. Rosario Pignatello
Prof. Dr. Cinzia Anna Ventura
Guest Editors

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