Polymer Processing Using Supercritical Fluid Based Technologies for Drug Delivery and Tissue Engineering Applications

From the use of botanical plants in early human civilizations through synthetic chemistry and biotechnology, drug research has always passionate scientists creating exciting challenges to a large number of researchers from different fields, thus, promoting a collaborative effort between polymer scientists, pharmacologists, engineers, chemists and medical researchers. Worldwide, there is an increasing concern on health care that creates a major opportunity for development of new pharmaceutical formulations. Ageing populations worried about the quality of life in the older years are actively seeking for new, more effective and patient compliant drug delivery devices. This has been the driving force for the continuous growth of the research made on delivery devices, which has become a powerful technique in health care. It has been recognized for long that simple pills or injections may not be the suitable methods of administration of a certain active compound. These medications present several problems and/or limitations, like poor drug bioavailability and systemic toxicity, derived essentially from pharmacokinetic and other carrier limitations and low solubility of the drugs in water. Therefore and to overcome these drawbacks, clinicians recommend frequent drug dosing, at high concentrations, in order to overcome poor drug bioavailability but causing a potential risk of systemic toxicity. Polymer science has open new strategies for drug delivery systems. This Chapter overviews of possible strategies involving polymer modification and processing for controlled drug delivery and drug delivery in tissue engineering.