Recent Fabrication Methods to Produce Polymer-Based Drug Delivery Matrices (Experimental and In Silico Approaches)

Abstract

The study of novel drug delivery systems represents one of the frontiers of the biomedical research area. Multi-disciplinary scientific approaches combining traditional or engineered technologies are used to provide major advances in improving drug bioavailability, rate of release, cell/tissue specificity and therapeutic index. Biodegradable and bio-absorbable polymers are usually the building blocks of these systems, and their copolymers are employed to create delivery components. For example, poly (lactic acid) or poly (glycolic acid) are often used as bricks for the production drug-based delivery systems as polymeric microparticles (MPs) or micron-scale needles. To avoid time-consuming empirical approaches for the optimization of these formulations, in silico-supported models have been developed. These methods can predict and tune the release of different drugs starting from designed combinations. Starting from these considerations, this review has the aim of investigating recent approaches to the production of polymeric carriers and the combination of in silico and experimental methods as promising platforms in the biomedical field.

Keywords

• polymers
• micro and nano encapsulation
• microfluidics
• microneedles
• in silico approaches