Advanced formulation design: improving drug therapies for the management of severe and chronic pain.

Chronic pain is a condition affecting a vast patient population and resulting in billions of dollars in associated health care costs annually. Sufferers from severe chronic pain often require [correction of requite] twenty-four hour drug treatment through intrusive means and/or repeated oral dosing. Although the oral route of administration is most preferred, conventional immediate release oral dosage forms lead to inconvenient and suboptimal drug therapies for the treatment of chronic pain. Effective drug therapies for the management of chronic pain therefore require advanced formulation design to optimize the delivery of potent analgesic agents. Ideally, these advanced delivery systems provide efficacious pain therapy with minimal side effects via a simple and convenient dosing regime. In this article, currently commercialized and developing drug products for pain management are reviewed with respect to dosage form design as well as clinical efficacy. The drug delivery systems reviewed herein represent advanced formulation designs that are substantially improving analgesic drug therapies.