Controlled drug delivery

The papers collected in this volume of the APV paperback series were presented at an international symposium held from November 14, 1984 at Bad Homburg. At this conference the International Association for Pharmaceutical Technology (APV) intended to demonstrate to interested experts the tendency of future developments on the basis of the systems and techniques known. As controlled drug delivery is restricted to not only one pharmaceutical dosage form and as the control mechanisms often share the same physicochemical bases, an attempt was made to show the latest steps of development in the diefferent fields of drugs. Only the transdermal systems were discussed rather briefly, because they seem to have reached a „steady state“ in their development. Furthermore, these systems were sufficiently dealt with at the other meetings of the APV. Respective research papers have been published in volume 4 of this series. However, the present state of development was taken into account by accepting a lecture given by B. Zierenberg, which was held on the APV seminar „Biopharmaceutical Aspects of Dermal Application of Drugs“ at Darmstadt in 1984. This conference on controlled drug delivery clearly showed that new findings are possible through intensive cooperation of pharmacists, toxicologists, physicochemists, physicists, pharmacologists and physicians. And these are ultimately the fields the speakers at this conference came from.