Analysis of the Drug Delivery Devices Market, Forecast to 2023

Adoption of Connected Healthcare Solutions to Improve Patient Adherence and Compliance

The growing interest in drug delivery devices is more towards microneedle technology for vaccines and hormones. As healthcare companies focus on the transdermal mode of delivery for insulin, companies developing patch technologies have also received huge funding, indicating that the interest in the industry is shifting toward transdermal drug delivery. Great emphasis is being placed on the targeted drug delivery system to help minimize the probability of adverse effects. This system ensures reachability with enhanced efficacy and minimal degradation bypassing the body’s defense mechanisms.

Expanding patient populations and growing unmet medical needs are contributing to a higher demand for healthcare services and leading to increased cost pressures within global healthcare systems. Steadily rising healthcare costs have also led to increased scrutiny on drug pricing by governments, the media, and consumers. In this context, it is understandable that extending the use of generics is considered an important element in most prescribing strategies to achieve substantial savings without impacting patient care. Switching from branded inhaled drugs to lower-cost generics represents an opportunity to reduce the cost of treatments for asthma and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).

One challenge posed by the new generations of biologics is that many of them are large molecules and have to be administered in high concentrations. The resulting formulations reach high viscosities, sometimes together with high volumes, thus creating a challenge for traditional delivery systems. As a result, large-volume wearable injectors, which are worn on the skin, have gained increasing interest within the pharmaceutical industry.

For existing companies, the real question is how to transform a seemingly simple delivery device into a technology-fueled, infection-free, and sleek connected environment. A true smart hospital focuses on three major areas - operational efficiency, clinical excellence, and patient-centricity, with technological advances being leveraged for these 3 areas to derive the ‘smart’ insight, which was not possible earlier. Effective drug delivery devices must also provide patient-centric services that are aligned to clinical outcomes.

Currently, the major challenges for the adoption of this concept, apart from the obvious need for financial investments, include the same ones that apply to the digitization of healthcare - the absolute need for interoperability, the risk of cybersecurity, and the lack of expert resources. Hospitals currently struggle with the major question of where to begin. A detailed, comprehensive solution set needs to be formulated for the hospitals as a strategy plan, and small parts of the solution may be applied, keeping the systems open and interoperable for future solutions to be easily integrated.