| Drug Delivery Technologies Bioavailability Enhancement > Challenges of poorly bioavailable drugs |
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| About 40% of new chemical entities coming from discovery are poorly bioavailable. Poor bioavailability exerts strong limits to the performance of a drug by the necessity to administer a much higher dose than strictly required from a pharmacologic point of view. This can induce important side effects or create problems related to the cost of treatment. Poor bioavailability may also oblige the formulator to choose the injection route instead of the oral route or to abandon a project in development. |
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| The absorption of a drug is determined by its physicochemical properties: in order for a drug to be effective orally, it must be soluble in gastro-intestinal fluids and also possess permeability properties for good membrane diffusion in order to reach the bloodstream. |
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| Each drug can be classified according to its solubility and its permeability properties according the BCS (Biopharmaceutical Classification System). |
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Rescuing R&D Dropouts: Many potentially innovative drugs may be abandoned due to poor pharmacokinetic properties such as poor water solubility or poor intestinal permeability. Through drug delivery, pharmacokinetic characteristics of a drug may be improved thus enabling maintenance of drugs in the R&D pipeline. |
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Life Cycle Management: The pharmaceutical industry has reached the point where the discovery of new drugs has become very difficult and expensive. Exploiting the maximal value that can be generated of existing compounds now constitutes an important driver of revenue. Drug delivery is a solution for pharmaceutical companies to enhance the life cycle of their products and maximize their returns on investments |
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Product Differentiation: Drug delivery systems is an effective way of enhancing the competitiveness in a crowded market |
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