Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2008 May-Jun;70(3):269-77.
doi: 10.4103/0250-474X.42967.

Protein and Peptide drug delivery: oral approaches

Jessy Shaji  1 , V Patole
Affiliations

Protein and Peptide drug delivery: oral approaches

Jessy Shaji et al. Indian J Pharm Sci. 2008 May-Jun.

Abstract

Till recent, injections remained the most common means for administering therapeutic proteins and peptides because of their poor oral bioavailability. However, oral route would be preferred to any other route because of its high levels of patient acceptance and long term compliance, which increases the therapeutic value of the drug. Designing and formulating a polypeptide drug delivery through the gastro intestinal tract has been a persistent challenge because of their unfavorable physicochemical properties, which includes enzymatic degradation, poor membrane permeability and large molecular size. The main challenge is to improve the oral bioavailability from less than 1% to at least 30-50%. Consequently, efforts have intensified over the past few decades, where every oral dosage form used for the conventional small molecule drugs has been used to explore oral protein and peptide delivery. Various strategies currently under investigation include chemical modification, formulation vehicles and use of enzyme inhibitors, absorption enhancers and mucoadhesive polymers. This review summarizes different pharmaceutical approaches which overcome various physiological barriers that help to improve oral bioavailability that ultimately achieve formulation goals for oral delivery.

Keywords: Therapeutic proteins and peptides; absorption enhancers; enzyme inhibitors; formulation vehicles; mucoadhesive polymeric system; oral delivery.

PubMed Disclaimer

Similar articles

See all similar articles

Cited by

See all "Cited by" articles

References

    1. Rick S. Oral protein and peptide drug delivery. In: Binghe W, Teruna S, Richard S, editors. Drug delivery: Principles and applications. New Jersey: Wiley Interscience; 2005. p. 189.
    1. Adessi C, Sotto C. Converting a peptide into a drug: Strategies to improve stability and bioavailability. Curr Med Chem. 2002;9:963–78. - PubMed
    1. Adessi C, Sotto C. Strategies to improve stability and bioavailability of peptide drugs. Frontiers Med Chem. 2004;1:513–27. - PubMed
    1. Sayani AP, Chien YW. Systemic delivery of peptides and proteins across absorptive mucosae. Crit Rev Ther Drug Carrier Syst. 1996;13:85–184. - PubMed
    1. Torres LM, Peppas NA. Transmucosal delivery systems for calcitonin: A review. Biomaterials. 2000;21:1191–6. - PubMed

LinkOut - more resources