The future of microfluidic assays in drug development

Background: Microfluidic technology emerges as a convenient route to applying automated and reliable assays in a high-throughput manner with low cost. Objective: This review aims to answer questions related to the capabilities and potential applications of microfluidic assays that can benefit the drug development process and extends an outlook on its future trends. Methods: This article reviews recent publications in the field of microfluidics, with an emphasis on novel applications for drug development. Results/conclusion: Microfluidics affords unique capabilities in sample preparation and separation, combinatorial synthesis and array formation, and incorporating nanotechnology for more functionalities. The pharmaceutical industry, facing challenges from limited productivity and accelerated competition, can thus greatly benefit from applying new microfluidic assays in various drug development stages, from target screening and lead optimization to absorption distribution metabolism elimination and toxicity studies in preclinical evaluations, diagnostics in clinical trials and drug formulation and manufacturing process optimization.