Putting The Patient At The Center Of Drug Delivery Technology Formulations

By Ed Miseta, Chief Editor, Clinical Leader

Rising healthcare costs are a concern to everyone from the president down to the patient. One way of controlling those costs is to involve the patient in as much self-administration as possible. Doing so would reduce hospital and clinic stays, and the cost of nurses visiting patients at home. Patient-friendly formulations would also serve to increase patient adherence to their medications.

To facilitate this, drug delivery technologies need to be formulated in such a way as to facilitate easy use and patient acceptability. One example would be an orally disintegrating tablet (ODT), which does not require water and is easy to swallow for the elderly, the very young, and patients who have dysphagia.

Features which impact patient acceptance of drug delivery include delivery devices, packaging, instructions, and labeling, as well as the taste, convenience, color, feel, and ease of ingestion of the medicine itself. Companies have the additional dilemma of deciding whether to delay the launch of an effective drug in order to get all of these other factors perfected.

I spoke with Robert Becker, Chief Research Officer for Aptalis Pharma, to get his thoughts on the challenges faced by pharma companies and what can be done to overcome them.