New oral drug formulations

During the past few years, the pharmaceutical industry has seen expirations on patents of some very important drugs, leading to major losses for their companies. This trend has not reached its end, with even more blockbuster drugs losing their patents in the upcoming years. In this context, the pharmaceutical industry has adapted by producing new delivery systems of the active component, which are able to increase product efficacy and patient compliance, rather than launching new chemical entities.
These formulations include complex dosage forms such as transdermal, trans-mucosal and also new oral delivery formulations. In 2009, the number of reformulated products that were using these technologies was almost triple that of new chemical entities (75 versus 26). This article focuses though on novel formulations for oral delivery.