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Drug delivery—the increasing momentum

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Abstract

Drug delivery and the drug modalities in the discovery and development pipelines of the Pharmaceutical and Biotechnology Industries have changed significantly over the last 25 years. Drug delivery was traditionally used primarily to enhance oral exposure or prolong exposure of small molecules and the early peptide drugs. The world is rapidly changing; the drug modalities are diversifying, and drug delivery scientists must play a more prominent role and are core to the genesis of innovative medicines of the future. This note shows where delivery science can play a critical role in treating diseases of the future. It outlines some of the skills, capabilities and behaviours that will be critical for the success of the next generation of medicines and illustrates where drug delivery science will be required at the inception of projects in discovery as well as in development where until recently this has predominantly been the case. Finally, it asks whether we are ready for this evolution.

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Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Dr John Fell for his support and discussions to help the genesis and development of this article, Dr Paul Gellert for reading and commenting on an early draft and to Emily Fell for her expert assistance with the figures.

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  1. Advanced Drug Delivery, Pharmaceutical Sciences, R & D, Macclesfield, UK

    Marianne Ashford

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  1. Marianne Ashford
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Correspondence to Marianne Ashford.

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Ashford, M. Drug delivery—the increasing momentum. Drug Deliv. and Transl. Res. 10, 1888–1894 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13346-020-00858-6

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