Contribution of Particle Design Research to the Development of Patient-Centric Dosage Forms

A variety of dosage forms have been developed in order to achieve effective and safe drug delivery in topical or systemic drug administrations. In this review, formulation research and process issues related to a popular oral dosage form, the tablet, are introduced. Research on oral dosage forms, including orally disintegrating tablets (ODTs) and films (ODFs), which have recently been developed with an aim toward more patient-centric drug therapy, is also introduced. Another trend in recent drug therapy is an increase in the number of large bioactive molecules among the newly developed active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs). To design dosage forms for these APIs, novel dosage form design and administration routes are required. For this purpose, we have tried to effectively use the polymer-coated liposomes in oral, pulmonary and ophthalmic administration. For example, suitable polymers were introduced for the design of specific administration routes, such as mucoadhesive liposomes for oral administration. The key point in these researches is the particle design for the component particles of final dosage forms, both in the case of coarse powder particle design for formulating solid dosage forms and in the case of colloidal particle design, such as the design of liposomes for peptide drug delivery.