Microfluidics as a cutting-edge technique for drug delivery applications

The need for new and more advanced drug delivery systems (DDS) is currently in demand for efficient delivery of the therapeutics to the desirable tissues/cells, improved drug formulations, and industrial scale production. The newly developed drugs often present poor biopharmaceutical properties, therefore suffering from poor patient compliance, as well as deleterious side effects. Emulsion-based formulations gained attention as potential DDS for the delivery of single or combined small drug molecules with different physicochemical properties. However, the conventional fabrication methods often yield heterogeneous drug formulations. The microfluidics technique offers several advantages over conventional methods for the synthesis. of DDS. The highly monodisperse droplets obtained with this technique are useful templates in the preparation of several DDS, such as microcapsules, microspheres, polymersomes, and liposomes. In this review, we will discuss and provide an overview of the microfluidics techniques based on glass capillary as a tool for the fabrication of advanced DDS. In particular, we will focus on the production of droplet-based systems by single, double, and multiple emulsion microfluidic techniques. Finally, the future prospects and potentials of the microfluidics technique are also elucidated. (C) 2016 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.