OSD
The needs of patients and healthcare providers are constantly changing to enhance convenience and comfort, and speed up the rates of administration. This means that pharmaceutical companies must innovate to keep pace with demand and stay competitive.
Over the next decade, we can expect to see a continued focus on alternative drug delivery formulations, including:
- Continued growth in the trend towards local treatment: Injections will continue to play a crucial role in the drug delivery, but we can also expect to see more advanced techniques for pulmonary delivery, topical delivery, and implantable devices in the near future. These delivery methods provide patients with more targeted and localised treatments with fewer side effects and improved efficacy, ultimately leading to better health outcomes.
- Integration of smart devices with drug dosing: By monitoring biological data, such as blood glucose levels, as well as sending convenient alerts when it’s time to take a dose, smart devices help increase patient adherence to medication and provide both patients and healthcare providers with valuable information about how the patient is using and responding to their medication in the real world.
- Advances in oral delivery technology: This will enable the oral delivery of biologic drugs, providing patients with a more convenient and comfortable treatment option than traditional injectable delivery. Efforts are already being made to develop a platform technology to support the absorption of orally-administered biopharma treatments.
However, it’s clear that all of these innovations across the alternative drug delivery formulation market require a wide range of different drug delivery technologies, each with its own unique requirements.
Given this diversity, it is not feasible for pharmaceutical companies to develop and manufacture all the necessary drug delivery solutions in-house. That's where outsourcing partners come into play. By outsourcing to CDMOs with drug delivery device expertise in a particular delivery technology, companies can access the resources and knowledge needed to navigate the development journey more smoothly.
In a recent article with PharmTech Europe, Torkel Gren, Senior Director, Science and Technology Officer, and Dr Uwe Hanenburg, Head of Product Development at Recipharm, share their insights into what the future holds for alternative drug delivery and how companies can prepare now for future success.