Transdermal delivery via medical device technologies

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Despite their effectiveness and indispensability, many drugs are poorly solvated in aqueous solutions. Over recent decades, the need for targeted drug delivery has led to the development of pharmaceutical formulations with enhanced lipid solubility to improve their delivery properties. Therefore, a dependable approach for administering lipid-soluble drugs needs to be developed.

Areas covered

The advent of 3D printing or additive manufacturing (AM) has revolutionized the development of medical devices, which can effectively enable the delivery of lipophilic drugs to the targeted tissues. This review focuses on the use of microneedles and iontophoresis for transdermal drug delivery. Microneedle arrays, inkjet printing, and fused deposition modeling have emerged as valuable approaches for delivering several classes of drugs. In addition, iontophoresis has been successfully employed for the effective delivery of macromolecular drugs.

Expert opinion

Microneedle arrays, inkjet printing, and fused deposition are potentially useful for many drug delivery applications; however, the clinical and commercial adoption rates of these technologies are relatively low. Additional efforts is needed to enable the pharmaceutical community to fully realize the benefits of these technologies.

KEYWORDS:

• Additive manufacturing
• drug delivery
• hollow microneedles
• inkjet printing
• iontophoresis
• 3D printing
• water-insoluble drugs

Article highlights

• Different kinds of 3D printed microneedle arrays have been used for transdermal drug delivery

• Additive manufacturing techniques were used to prepare microneedles for transdermal drug delivery

• Piezoelectric printing has been considered for the controlled release of lipophilic drugs

• Fused deposition modeling can be used for drug encapsulation applications

• The iontophoresis process drives drugs to the target body site under electrical influence

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosrues

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

Funding was provided by National Science Foundation Grant # 2029974 (B Cox, R Naravan, A Satoskar, and S Shukla) and The Ohio State University (R Huston).