Rita P Aquino

By Paola Russo, Antonietta Santoro, Lucia Prota, Mariateresa Stigliani and Rita P. Aquino

Part of the book: Recent Advances in Novel Drug Carrier Systems

By Giulia Auriemma, Andrea Cerciello and Rita P. Aquino

Recently, different technologies have been used to transform active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) into new dosage forms. Engineered drug delivery systems may modify biopharmaceutical properties of the API achieving either immediate or delayed release according to specific therapeutic needs. Particularly, preprogrammed release of oral formulations delivering the drug at expected times may be useful in chronotherapy of early morning pathologies. The conventional approach when dealing with such diseases is to administer NSAIDs two to three times daily. This approach does not allow to fit drug release with symptoms onset resulting in inefficient therapy and poor patient compliance. NSAIDs may be very effective if administered at least 4–6 h before the pain reaches its peak in the early morning. The solution could be to design delayed drug delivery systems allowing one administration before going to sleep acting in the early morning. This chapter highlights new approaches in developing controlled delivery systems of NSAIDs potentially useful to treat both acute and chronic inflammation. The chapter illustrates the versatility of laminar jet break‐up technology (prilling) to produce gel beads able to control rate and time of drug delivery. A special focus will be on particle‐engineering strategies, i.e., prilling and prilling technique in tandem with microwave or supercritical fluid‐assisted drying.

Part of the book: Nonsteroidal Anti-Inflammatory Drugs