Novel Concept of Drug Delivery Based on Chronotherapy: A Review

Chronotropic drug delivery systems are drawing an increasing interest of the galvanic research in the field of pharmaceuticals towards the development of more efficacious drug delivery systems for such diseases which pertains to a well established oscillatory rhythm in their pathogenesis including hypertension, angina, asthma, cancer, arthritis, allergic rhinitis, attention deficit syndrome, hypercholestremia, diabetes and many others. Currently, various approaches viz., single unit, multiparticulate systems, electro-responsive pulsatile release, magnetically induced pulsatile release, systems with different type of polymeric barrier coatings, stimuli sensitive etc. has been so far developed and characterized successfully. Based on above approaches, recently novel formulations viz., PulsincapTM, TIMERx, CONTIN, OROS, CODAS, DIFFUCAPS, CEFORM, etc. have also been envisaged by various researchers extensively. Pulsatile drug delivery systems involve spatial and temporal release of the drug molecules after a predetermined lag time period. Sigmoid release profile can be followed by these systems, which leads to maximisation of therapeutic effect and rapid drug release. The article on the whole summarises the efficiency of such systems for diseases requiring safer, potential and holistic approaches respectively.