ABSTRACT
Successful delivery of many highly active compounds and the majority of therapeutic peptides, proteins, oligosaccharides, nucleotides and nucleosides via the oral route represents a major challenge in drug development. These drug moieties have a wide spectrum of therapeutic applications and the significance and scope of their functions have been further extended by advances in the areas of biotechnology, biochemistry, molecular biology and solid phase synthesis. Advances in these fields have led to the availability of large quantities of pure, potent and highly specific drugs, often with modified or “super-agonist” properties. However the level of progress attained in the area of drug production has not been matched by a similar rate of progress in the area of their delivery. Conventional processes to deliver drugs to
their sites of action in vivo are inefficient and introduction of selective delivery and transport is required.
