Microfabricated Drug Delivery Systems: Concepts to Improve Clinical Benefit

Important classes of drugs have yet to benefit from advances in drug delivery technology. Strategies to provide reasonable oral bioavailability of peptide and proteins drugs remain elusive, for example. Systemic cancer drugs produce dose-limiting toxicities largely due to their lack of selectivity. Although delivery systems such as immunotoxins and liposomes improve selectivity of a few cancer drugs, current technology is not suitable for the vast majority of such molecules. Systems able to mimic the body's natural feedback mechanisms for secretion of hormones such as insulin represents yet another unmet medical need. Microfabrication techniques may permit the creation of drug delivery systems that possess a combination of structural, mechanical, and perhaps electronic features which may surmount some of these challenges. In this review, drug delivery concepts are presented which capitalize on the strengths of microfabrication. Possible applications include micromachined silicon membranes to create implantable biocapsules for the immunoisolation of pancreatic islet cells—as a possible treatment for diabetes—and sustained release of injectable drugs needed over long time periods. Asymmetrical, drug-loaded microfabricated particles with specific ligands linked to the surface are proposed for improving oral bioavailability of peptide (and perhaps protein) drugs. Similarly designed particles with sizes in the 2–10 μm range may be safe to administer intravenously and a clinical strategy is suggested for using such microparticles for treating solid tumors. Although hypothetical now, work is in progress to prove the concepts presented here and to validate the intuitive belief that there is an important place for microfabricated systems in drug delivery.