ABSTRACT
Oral drug delivery of many active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) such as hormones, pain relief medications, and antibiotic medications may have side effects that are unintended in addition to achieving the desired therapeutic effect of the dose delivered. In addition to the pharmaceutical polymers that are used in hot melt extrusion for oral dosage forms, the polymers that are used in the shape extrusion of drug delivery implants and devices consist of bioresorbable and biodurable polymers. Shape extrusion or injection molding can be used to make dosage forms for local drug delivery. By their very nature, polymers are readily shaped into numerous geometries. The types of shapes that can be produced by extrusion include fibers, rods, pellets, tubes, sheets or films, and profiles. Coil winders, which are positioned in-line to make reels of relatively flexible extrusions, are common in the plastic and rubber extrusion industry, and they can be easily modified and applied to pharmaceutical extrusion applications.
