The Design of Patient-centric Dosage Forms for Older Adults

The older population is very diverse with regard to the health condition, as well as the perception and physical and cognitive ability of each individual subject. Furthermore, the prevalence of multi- morbidity and polypharmacy is increasing in the aging population, and while some patients are able to manage their medication independently, others require a significant level of caregiver assistance. From a pharmaceutical industry perspective, the development of a patient-centric drug product is a key objective to ensure safe, effective, and efficacious treatments, thus reducing healthcare costs and increasing the patient’s quality of life. This mission requires a cross-functional effort within the companies, a constructive dialogue with health authorities, as well as the involvement of patient populations, caregivers, physicians, hospitals, nursing homes, and health insurance companies. It starts from a sound understanding of patient needs, requirements, and disease conditions, which then feed into the design of age-appropriate dosage forms, the use of patient-specific biopharmaceutics prediction tools, as well as the application of human factors engineering to carefully consider and test the safe and effective use of the drug product by its intended user populations under real life conditions.