Drug & Gene Delivery Systems Market - Delivering Hope

Drugs are the first line therapy for almost every small or major illness. With the concept of drugs comes the term drug delivery systems, which can be said of as a device or a formulation that is be used to introduce a therapeutic substance within the body. The said device or formulation helps in optimizing effectiveness of the drug within the body. A common example can be taken of as nasal spray, which is most commonly used by people suffering from nasal congestion.

With a growing number of diseases making their presence felt around the globe, organizations have succeeded, to a large extent, in developing different routes of administration of drugs in order to get the optimized desired response. Targeted drug delivery system helps doctors in exactly targeting the area in the body that needs treatment, ignoring the surrounding areas. This avoids any side effect that could have occurred, while also ensuring that the effectiveness of the medicine is maintained at the target. Development in drug delivery systems is aimed at factors such as increasing patient convenience and reducing the amount of active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) per dose.

Gene delivery systems, on the other hand, involves the introduction of DNA or RNA, which are foreign genetic materials, into the host cell. For gene delivery to be successful, the foreign genetic material must remain stable in the host cell, integrating into a genome or duplicating it independently. Along with applications in human therapeutics, gene delivery is also important in the genetic modification of crops. A large number of ongoing clinical trials indicates the magnitude of turning focus of the pharmaceutical companies towards gene therapy. High potential of the gene therapy along with the development of effective vectors are expected to drive the market for the gene delivery systems.

What’s aiding the growth?

The current drug and gene delivery systems market has achieved a level of competition where every market player is investing significantly in developing a novel delivery system in order to remain relevant in the market. The growth of both drug as well as gene delivery system markets can attributed to various factors, such as:

• There has been a continued growth in terms of occurrence of diseases around the world, helped immensely by a change in lifestyle. Consequently, the demand for drug delivery systems has only increased.

• Continued research and development by major pharmaceutical organizations, as well as rookie players, with focus on capturing the market has helped in introducing advanced products in the market, thereby increasing market attractiveness.

• Additionally, the availability of the same drug in different dosage forms provides an opportunity for the pharmaceutical companies for price differentiation to maximize the profit, thus leading to greater varieties based on the dosage.

• Controlled-release drug delivery systems have shown their effectiveness while combating a wide variety of diseases, which has helped in creating customer demand in good volume.

• Gene therapy has become one of the most well-known treatment forms in the present day, and with gene delivery being an important part of this setup, naturally the market for gene delivery systems has grown.

• Rapid advancements in genomics, use of DNA microarrays for NGS has allowed a number of vectors that can potentially be used in gene therapy. This again is a factor aiding market growth.

• There has been a global demand for crops to be pest and stress resistant, while also having an extended shelf life, among many other desirable properties, which can be made possible through gene delivery. This is another factor driving the market growth.

Technical advancement is playing an important role in driving the demand for drug delivery systems since most of these techniques aid in patient convenience. A few of the notable technological advancements from the past years include auto-injectors, nanotechnology in tablets and injections, and self-powered wearable devices. These technologies are expected to fuel the market growth of the advanced drug delivery systems in the near future.

Continued breakthroughs being made by companies

The dynamic nature of the market can be explained by the example of insulin drug delivery systems. While the traditional and popular way of insulin delivery is by subcutaneous injection, many companies have attempted different dosage forms such as jet injectors, pills, sprays, insulin micro pump, transdermal patch, nanopumps, capsules, tablets and insulin port. A recent addition is of artificial pancreas which is a medical device that includes automated subcutaneous administration of insulin and is primarily for people afflicted with type 1 diabetes.

Major players in the drug delivery systems market include, but are not limited to, Pfizer, Inc., F. Hoffmann-La Roche Ltd, Johnson and Johnson Private Ltd, Novartis AG, Bayer AG, and Becton, Dickinson and Company, while the gene delivery systems market sees competition from Uniqure N.V., SiBiono GeneTech Co., Epeius Biotechnologies Corporation, Shanghai Sunway Biotech Co., Ltd, and Human Stem Cells Institute. All these companies are constantly investing in product development to cater to the changing demands of the patients and to maintain their position in the competition.

Some of the recent advances made in this industry include:

• In October 2019, Novartis received approval from the U.S. FDA with regards to Beovu, its anti-blindness medicine used in the treatment of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) that affects 20 million people globally. The development is expected to provide a boost to Novartis in the increasingly crowded market for eye problems.

• In October 2019, Roche announced that the FDA had approved a supplemental New Drug Application (sNDA) for Xofluza for treating high-risk cases of acute, uncomplicated flu in the age group of 12 years or older. It is a one-dose oral medicine.

• In October 2019, a study was presented by the team at Scripps Research regarding the improvement in effectiveness of hematopoietic stem-cell based gene therapy brought about by Caraphenol A. The said molecule, related to resveratrol that is produced by red grapes, is expected to enhance gene delivery to these stem cells through reduction of antiviral restriction at endosomes.

• In October 2019, Pfizer in partnership with OPKO Health reported positive data regarding the phase III clinical trial for somatrogon, used for the treatment of growth hormone deficiency (GHD) in children. The trial was conducted in more than 20 countries.

  In-depth report on global drug and gene delivery devices market by Grand View Research:

https://www.grandviewresearch.com/industry-analysis/drug-gene-delivery-devices-market