Drug Delivery

It is not always straightforward to turn an active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) into an efficient pharmaceutical. Some APIs are strongly toxic, some are degraded before taking effect, and many are poorly soluble in water. As a consequence, the drug’s efficacy and bioavailability is compromised and side-effects often prevail the benefits of a treatment. Drug delivery systems (DDS) can enhance the bioavailability of APIs to specific tissues.

DDS work like a parcel service where drug delivery compounds represent the postal package and APIs are the content hidden within. The package determines:

• How well the content is protected from its environment
• How well the environment is protected from the content
• Where the content will be delivered
• How fast the content will be delivered
• How much will be delivered at a time

In analogy to the parcel, current efforts in the field include the development of targeted delivery where the drug becomes active in a specific area of the body (e.g. cancerous tissue). Additionally, DDCs can be designed for a sustained release, i.e. they can determine how fast the API will be delivered to the body. Drug delivery systems, are often applied in the form of micelles, vesicles, particles and molecular polymer conjugates, and their size ranges between a few and hundreds of nanometers. They are constituted of various compound classes including lipids, polymers, peptides, sugars as well as inorganic materials.

Our Commitment

We believe that the successful application of many prospective drugs will critically depend on suitable delivery technologies. However, due to the complexity of engineered drug delivery systems, minute deviations of the raw material‘s composition and purity can lead to amplified inconsistencies in drug formulations and, consequently, requlatory challenges. This is why Merck Millipore commits itself to the manufacturing of DDCs according to the highest quality standards.
We engage and deliver the quality you require to succeed.