Author(s): Avinash M, Suryaprabha M, Sreekanth N, Dineshreddy B, BabuRao Ch
In today's era, insulin delivery by alternative route is an area of current interest in the design of drug delivery system. Most of the global pharmaceutical companies are showing encouraging progress in their attempts to develop alternative insulin delivery technologies. For most patients with type 1 diabetes, the tedious part of the treatment is to tolerate needle after needle, both for glucose measurement and to deliver insulin. The introduction of insulin therapy years ago has saved the lives of millions of patients with diabetes. The development of technologies in the last decade have brought to limelight the strategies that hold some promise in turning non-injectable insulin delivery from theory to reality. A rigorous research effort has been undertaken worldwide to replace the authentic subcutaneous route by a more accurate and non-invasive route. Considerable progress has been made to achieve new milestones for effective treatment of diabetes. Peroral, nasal, and pulmonary administration has demonstrated good potential for treatment of diabetes. In addition, transmucosal, buccal, ocular, rectal, and vaginal routes of insulin have also shown to decrease serum glucose concentrations. The transdermal route using various technologies also exhibits success in delivering insulin