Cancer is one of the most serious health problems and the second leading cause of death worldwide, and with an ageing and growing population, problems related to cancer will continue. In the battle against cancer, many therapies and anticancer drugs have been developed. Chemotherapy and relevant drugs are widely used in clinical practice; however, their applications are always accompanied by severe side effects. In recent years, the drug delivery system has been improved by nanotechnology to reduce the adverse effects of the delivered drugs. Among the different candidates, core–sheath nanofibres prepared by coaxial electrospinning are outstanding due to their unique properties, including their large surface area, high encapsulation efficiency, good mechanical property, multidrug loading capacity, and ability to govern drug release kinetics. Therefore, encapsulating drugs in coaxial electrospun nanofibres is a desirable method for controlled and sustained drug release. This review summarises the drug delivery applications of coaxial electrospun nanofibres with different structures and drugs for various cancer treatments.

Therapeutic proteins and peptides (TPPs) are increasingly favoured above small drug molecules due to their high specificity to the site of action and reduced adverse effects resulting in increased use of these agents for medical treatments and therapies. Consequently, there is a need to formulate TPPs in dosage forms that are accessible and suitable for a wide range of patient groups as the use of TPPs becomes increasingly prevalent in healthcare settings worldwide. Orally disintegrating dosage forms (ODDF) are formulations that can ensure easy-to-administer medication to a wider patient population including paediatrics, geriatrics and people in low-resource countries. There are many challenges involved in developing suitable pharmaceutical strategies to protect TPPs during formulation and manufacturing, as well as storage, and maintenance of a cold-chain during transportation. This review will discuss advances being made in the research and development of pharmaceutical and manufacturing strategies used to incorporate various TPPs into ODDF systems.

Electrospinning is increasingly becoming a viable means of producing drug delivery vehicles for oral delivery, particularly as issues of manufacturing scalability are addressed. In this study, electrospinning is explored as a taste-masking manufacturing technology for bitter drugs. The taste-masking polymer Eudragit E PO (E-EPO) was electrospun, guided by a Quality by Design (QbD) approach. Using a Design of Experiment (DoE), factors influencing the production of smooth fibers were investigated. Polymer concentration, solvent composition, applied voltage, flow rate and gap distance were the parameters examined. Of these, polymer concentration was shown to be the only statistically significant factor within the ranges studied (p-value = 0.0042). As the concentration increased, smoother fibers were formed, coupled with an increase in fiber diameter. 35% w/v E-EPO was identified as the optimum concentration for smooth fiber production. The optimized processing conditions identified were a gap distance of 175 mm, applied voltage of between 15 kV and 20 kV and flow rate of 1 mL/hour. Using this knowledge, the production optimization of electrospun E-EPO with chlorpheniramine maleate (CPM), a bitter antihistamine drug, was explored. The addition of CPM in drug loads of 1:6 up to 1:10 CPM: E-EPO yielded smooth fibers that were electrospun under similar conditions to placebo fibers. Solid state characterization showed CPM to be molecularly dispersed in E-EPO. An electronic tasting system, or E-tongue, indicated good taste-masking performance as compared to the equivalent physical mixtures. The study therefore describes a means of producing, optimizing and assessing the performance of electrospun taste-masked fibers as a novel approach to the formulation of CPM and potentially other bitter drug substances.

One of the main challenges to paediatric drug administration is swallowing difficulties, hindering the acceptability of the medicine and hence clinical outcomes. This study aims at developing a child-appropriate dosage form, the orodispersible mini-tablet (ODMT), using the model drug carbamazepine (CBZ). This dosage form was prepared and 3D-printed via a semi-solid extrusion technique. Design of Experiment methods were applied for optimising the formulation. The formulation with 40% (w/w) of SSG (superdisintegrant) and 5% (w/w) of PVP K30 (binder) was selected and loaded with CBZ. The drug-loaded tablets were characterised by a mean hardness of 18.5 N and a disintegrating time of 84 s, along with acceptable friability. The mean drug loading ratio of the tablets was tested as 90.56%, and the drug release rate in 0.1 M HCl reached 68.3% at 45 min. Excipients showed proper compatibility with the drug in physical form analysis. Taste assessment via an E-tongue was also conducted, where the drug did not show bitter taste signals at a low concentration in the taste assessment, and the sweetener also blocked bitterness signals in the testing. To this end, ODMTs were found to be potential candidates for child-appropriate dosage forms delivering CBZ.

The orally disintegrating tablet (ODT) has shown vast potential as an alternative oral dosage form to conventional tablets wherein they can disintegrate rapidly (≤30 s) upon contact with saliva fluid and should have an acceptable mouthfeel as long as their weight doesn’t exceed 500 mg. However, owing to the bitterness of several active ingredients, there is a need to find a suitable alternative to ODTs that maintains their features and can be taste-masked more simply and inexpensively. Therefore, electrospun nanofibers and solvent-cast oral dispersible films (ODFs) are used in this study as potential OD formulations for prednisolone sodium phosphate (PSP) that is commercially available as ODTs. The encapsulation efficiency (EE%) of the ODFs was higher (≈100%) compared to the nanofibers (≈87%), while the disintegration time was considerably faster for the electrospun nanofibers (≈30 s) than the solvent-cast ODFs (≈700 s). Hence, accelerated release rate of PSP from the nanofibers was obtained, due to their higher surface area and characteristic surface morphology that permitted higher wettability and thus, faster erosion. Taste-assessment study using the electronic-tongue quantified the bitterness threshold of the drug and its aversiveness concentration (2.79 mM). Therefore, a taste-masking strategy would be useful when further formulating PSP as an OD formulation.

The present study describes the use of two taste-masking polymers to fabricate a formulation of chlorpheniramine maleate for paediatric administration. Co-axial electrospinning was utilized to create layered nanofibres; the two polymers, Eudragit^® E PO and Kollicoat^® Smartseal, were alternated between the core and the shell of the system in order to identify the optimum taste-masked formulation. The drug was loaded in the core on all occasions. It was found that the formulation with Kollicoat^® Smartseal in the core with the drug, and Eudragit^® E PO in the shell showed the most effective taste-masking compared to the other formulations. These fibres were in the nano-range and had smooth morphology as verified by scanning electron microscopy. Solid-state characterization and thermal analysis confirmed that amorphous solid dispersions were formed upon electrospinning. The Insent E-tongue was used to assess the taste-masking efficiency of the samples, and it was found that this formulation was undetectable by the bitter sensor, indicating successful taste-masking compared to the raw version of the drug. The E-tongue also confirmed the drug’s bitterness threshold as compared to quinine HCl dihydrate, a parameter that is useful for formulation design and taste-masking planning.