Drug Delivery

Applications / Drug Delivery

Drug delivery systems based on soft polymers play the role of drug carriers as they are designed for the controlled release of drugs at precise locations within the body. They prevent systemic toxicity and deliver accurate dosages to patients. The delivery mechanism involves their tuned degradation in physiological environments to release the therapeutic agents at the desirable rate.

The mechanical properties of drug delivery systems based on soft polymers are directly related to their nanostructure which in turn correlate with their ability to store or release therapeutic agents. Due to their soft nature, the precise and continuous mechanical evaluation of these systems is often challenging with conventional instruments when it comes to follow their degradation over time.

Here, we introduce the ElastoSens™ Bio to monitor the bulk or surface degradation of soft-polymers based drug delivery systems. This revolutionary testing technology measures the viscoelasticity of soft materials without contact, non-destructively and using detachable sample holders. These unique features allow the monitoring of soft-polymer degradation over long periods. The resulting viscoelasticity data can then be correlated to the amount of therapeutic agents released by the drug delivery system.

In this example, the ElastoSens™ Bio was used to characterize the mechanical degradation of an alginate/dye loaded-gelatin gel. The dye release strongly correlates with the gel viscoelastic properties.

The precise and long term mechanical evaluation of drug delivery systems based on soft polymers using the ElastoSens™ Bio is an effective way for analyzing the degradation and drug release kinetics and improving their performance.