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: Imagine an orally disintegrating tablet, which disintegrates in the mouth in less than 30 seconds and is ideal for use by children, adults as well as the elderly. The tablet can also be used in synergy with taste masking technology for bitter drug substances. Or think of an extended release tablet, which releases a drug over an eight-hour span, ideal for a once-a-day system. The release profile can be tailored to give a combination of instant and sustained release profiles. Won’t such ‘wonder’ drugs come to the rescue of harried patients suffering from a host of diseases— metabolic, respiratory, inflammatory and cancer? For instance, a blood pressure medication usually administered three times a day may be formulated as a once-a-day product with better control over symptoms and lesser side effects.

That’s not all. Think of dry powder inhalers (DPI), which could be used by patients of asthma and other respiratory diseases for systematic delivery of drugs to lungs. These easy to operate inhalers—just three steps of open, inhale and close—are designed to deliver uniform dose, irrespective of patient inhalation effort. Besides, they eliminate double dosing or dose wastage by children and adults alike.

Do not be surprised but excitement seems to be brewing at the research and development (R&D) centres of leading drug makers—Ranbaxy, Biocon, Cipla, Sun Pharma, Dr Reddy’s Laboratories, Nicholas Piramal and Wockhardt—to bring to the market novel drug delivery system (NDDS) products, particularly in the oral-controlled release systems segment, where business opportunity is estimated at $50 billion alone. “The oral -controlled release formulations provide better control of drug concentrations in blood, and minimise the toxic effects,” says Venkat Jasti, chairman, Suven Life Sciences.

Globally, it is estimated that NDDS products constitute 17% of the world’s pharmaceutical market—$104 billion out of $643 billion. The same robust trends are visible in the Indian pharmaceutical market as well. Currently, NDDS products’ sale in India is to the tune of Rs 1,480 crore, with an annual growth of 30%, which is well ahead of the domestic pharmaceutical market growth rate of 17% a year. NDDS products currently represent 5.6% of the total market in India.