Rate-Controlled Drug Delivery

THE goal of pharmaceutical research is to find drugs with desirable therapeutic properties and low risks of undesirable side effects. Drugs with such high therapeutic ratios are usually sought as new chemical entities — molecules designed to produce the desirable effects without the undesirable ones. However, another method of achieving the goal of pharmaceutical research is through the development of drug-delivery systems that achieve pharmacologic selectivity not solely on the basis of chemical structure but also on the basis of pharmacokinetic principles. Drug products achieving controlled rates of delivery offer one such approach. A few of these are already available . . .