Biosimilars

Biosimilars are a new class of drugs, which are derived from live organism through the recombinant DNA technology. These are recently introduced in the pharmaceutical field for the preparation of drug to prevent or control the diseases. Patients with diabetes and renal failure may already be receiving biosimilar epoetin and may receive same insulin in coming years. The main aim of present article is to introduce the fundamentals of biologics and to explain how they are different and what these differences mean for pharmacists.

Vesicular Drug Delivery Systems

Pharmacosomes are the colloidal dispersions of drugs covalently bound to lipids and may exist as ultrafine vesicular, micellar or hexagonal aggregates, depending on the chemical structure of the drug lipid complex. The term pharmacosomes is explicitly used to describe the zwitterion, amphiphilic stoichiometric complexes of polyphenolic compounds with phospholipids. The system is formed by linking a drug (pharmakon) to a carrier (soma), they are called pharmacosomes. Pharmacosomes can pass through biomembranes efficiently and possess advantages over the use of other vesicular systems such as transferosomes liposomes and noisome. Pharmacososmes are design to avoid the unusual problems associated with the liposomal entrapment of polar drug molecules like low drug incorporation, leakage and solubility. This chapter includes the basic introduction, applications, method of preparation, characterisation, advantages, some research experiences and future prospects of pharmacosomes.

Liposomes

The science of liposomes has expanded in ambit from bench to clinic through industrial production in thirty years since the naissance of the concept. This chapter makes an attempt to bring to light the impregnable contributions of great researchers in the field of liposomology that has witnessed clinical success in the recent times. The journey which began in 1965 with the observations of Bangham and further advances made en route (targeting/stealthing of liposomes) along with alternative and potential liposome forming amphiphiles has been highlighted in this chapter. The authors have also summarised the conventional and novel industrially feasible methods used to formulate liposomes in addition to characterisation techniques which have been used to set up quality control standards for large scale production. Besides, the authors have provided with an overview of primary therapeutic and diagnostic applications and a brief insight into the in vivo behaviour of liposomes.

Therapeutic Applications of Nanobiomaterials

The most exciting advancement in the fields of biomaterial science is its ability to engineer new materials at the nanoscale level for various biological applications particularly drug and gene delivery for therapeutic applications. The main focus of this chapter is to review the therapeutic applications of different nanobiomaterials. Thus, it is proposed to discuss type of nanobiomaterials, general biological barriers for therapeutics, surface functionalization of nanobiomaterials and their therapeutics application in the present chapter. The therapeutic applications are explained on the basis of type of nanobiomaterials. The biocompatibility and toxicological response towards nanobiomaterials is an important issue that requires investigation for clinical development and their commercialization. The commercial prospects and future challenges in development of nanobiomaterials particularly for drug delivery are also discussed in the present chapter.

Smart Hydrogels for Pharmaceutical Applications

The latest development in the field of smart hydrogels application as drugs carriers is shown in this chapter. Hydrogels are three-dimensional polymer network consisting of at least one hydrophilic monomer. They are insoluble in water, but in the excess presence of water or physiological fluids, swell to the equilibrium state. The amount of absorbed water depends on the chemical composition and the crosslinking degree of 3D hydrogel network and reaches over 1000% of the xerogel weight. Stimuli-responsive hydrogels exhibit significant change of their properties (swelling, color, transparency, conductivity, shape) due to small changes in the external environment conditions (pH, ionic strength, temperature, light wavelength, magnetic or electric fields, ultrasound, or a combination thereof). This smart hydrogels, with different physical and chemical properties, chemical structure and technology of obtaining, show great potential for application in the pharmaceutical industry. The application of smart hydrogels is very promising and at the beginning of the development and exploitation.

Liquid Crystalline System

Liquid crystalline system is a thermodynamically stable phase which is characterized by anisotropy. Liquid Crystals (LCs) are also termed as mesophase as they exhibit isotropic properties and liquid like behavior under some conditions (alter in temperature and concentration). Liquid crystals are influenced by number of parameters includes concentration, temperature, pH, and presence of salt. Liquid crystals are divided on the basis of shape of the molecules into two groups one is calmitic and other is discotic. A range of liquid crystalline phase (called mesophases) can be categorized by their sort of arrangement. The alignment of fragments in liquid crystalline phases is extensive on the molecular scale. Liquid crystal technology has a most important influence on several areas of pharmacy science and engineering, as well as device technology. As a novel type of drug delivery system, liquid crystals are explored and examined, definitely achieve mounting significance in industrial and scientific purposes.

Pharmaceutical and Medical Applications of Nanofibers

Nanofibers as a main group of nanoparticles have a vast range of applicability for therapeutic purposes, duo to their outstanding attributes such as very large surface to volume ratio and high porosity. These types of nanoparticles are more known as tissue scaffolds and drug delivery carriers. Nanofiber-based carriers are able to control the release pattern of drugs. In addition, they can act as multidrug-loaded materials with programed dual release profile. Electrospinning is a simple method, which is recognized as the most efficient approach for the fabrication of nanofibers. Production of ultrafine fibers based on various natural or synthetic polymers is possible by means of electrospinning. In this chapter, a comprehensive review is presented on various medical applications of electrospun nanofibers in the case of tissue engineering and drug delivery. Several investigations on therapeutic nanofibers and their processing methods are also summarized in this chapter.

Rational Design of Polymeric Micelle for Cancer Therapy

Clinical application of anticancer drugs is limited by problems such as low water solubility, lack of tissue-specificity and toxicity. Formulation development represents an important approach to these problems. Among the many delivery systems studied, polymeric micelles are an attractive nano-scaled delivery system due to their simplicity, ability to solubilize water-insoluble drugs, and small size (10-100 nm) that can take advantage of enhanced permeability and retention effect to specifically accumulate in tumors. This book chapter provides a brief review of recent advancements in developing environmentally responsive micellar systems for controlled delivery of chemotherapeutic agents to tumor tissues. The emphasis is placed on the discussion of several dual functional nanomicellar systems that were recently developed in our laboratory as well as a new strategy of improving micellar formulations via incorporation of an interfacial drug-interactive motif(s).

Multifunctional Dendrimers for Drug Nanocarriers

Dendrimers are nanosized, monodisperse, highly branched polymers with well-defined topological structure which have attracted much attention for drug delivery recently. To further improve the performance of dendrimers in drug delivery, various functional dendrimers are developed by decorating the dendrimers with targeting agents, imaging agents, or stimuli-sensitive moieties. They show good biocompatibility, visibility, tumor targeting and stimuli-sensitive properties for drug or gene delivery. This chapter will focus on the design of multifunctional nanocarriers based on the dendrimers. Therefore, the chapter will provide the ideas for designing the dendrimers based nanocarriers for controllable drug delivery and let more people know the development of dendrimers for drug delivery in recent years.

Non-Ionic Surfactant Vesicles (Niosomes) as New Drug Delivery Systems

Lipid vesicular systems composed of hydrated amphihiles with or without bilayer inducing agents such as cholesterol. On the basis of used amphiphilic molecule different nomenclature are used as liposomes, ufasomes and niosomes. Nonionic surfactants with mono-, di- or trialkyl chains form niosomes which are lipid vesicles with more chemical stability in comparison with phospholipids of liposomes. Both hydrophobic and hydrophilic chemicals can be encapsulated in niosomes as a new drug delivery system. This drug carrier system could have administered via injection, oral, pulmonary, vaginal, rectal, ophthalmic, nasal or transdermal routes with penetration enhancing potential. This chapter presents a detailed explain about niosome forming components, methods of preparation and routes of administration. Many examples for drug delivery potential of niosomes are also available in this review. Vaccine adjuvant and genetic substances vector capabilities are not given here.