Overview on the Recent Drugs Delivery Approaches

Abstract

This review provides the reader a concise overview of the different biological barriers that hinder the delivery of therapeutic agents through membranes, such as intestinal mucosa, Brain Blood Barrier (BBB), and mediators of transport such as efflux transporters and etc., and the approaches for overcoming such barriers. The approaches discussed in this review include: utilizing natural occurring transporters to deliver drugs specifically to their targets, nucleoside analogues delivery, CYPactivated prodrugs that target drugs to the liver, modification of passive diffusion by efflux pumps, intestinal transporters such as PEPT1 and GLUT1, Carrier Mediated Transport (CMT) systems for transporting nutrients, vitamins or hormones into the central nervous system, tissue selective drug delivery, administration of an exogenous enzyme to reach the tumor site which is followed by systemic administration of non-toxic prodrugs (ADEPT, GDEPT and VDEPT), enzymes involve in the bioconversion of ester-based prodrugs for activation (hydrolysis) of prodrugs to their active forms, brain targeted Chemical Delivery Systems (CDS), amino acid prodrugs to improve oral bioavailability, sustained drug delivery and intravenous drug delivery. In addition, Receptor-Mediated Transcytosis (RMT) for efficacious delivery of Nano particles through the intestinal mucosa and BBB, and the prodrug chemical approach based on intra molecularity to deliver anti-cancer drugs is discussed.