Design of oral drug delivery systems – Past, present and future

Abstract

This paper reviews the past and the present thinking about peroral delivery research and development and how future approaches may be significantly different, both qualitatively and quantitatively. The future should involve the use of comprehensive models capable of incorporating physico-chemical data and biological information such as gastrointestinal flow, how and where drug absorption occurs, and whether and where metabolism of the drug occurs during gastrointestinal transit. Special challenges would involve the use of such models in research protocols in the optimization of drug delivery systems.