Silybum marianum has been used for centuries by herbalists and physicians to treat different forms of liver diseases. It contains flavonoid, which has antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, antifibrotic and anticancer properties. The objective of this research was to develop a silymarin-based mucoadhesive gel for prolonged release in oral mucosa and to evaluate the same by using in vitro drug release kinetic models and ex vivo methods for drug permeation using chicken buccal mucosa. The mucoadhesive gel was formulated in different trials by varying the concentration of silymarin and polymer. Out of 10 formulation trials, the F10 optimized trial was characterized for in vitro physicochemical parameters such as pH, homogeneity, viscosity, stability, drug content, in vitro drug release, in vitro antioxidant assay and ex vivo permeation study. Trial 10 was chosen as the best trial formulation among the other trials and was marked as an optimal trial. The physicochemical properties observed were pH to be 6.4 ± 0.01, the gel free of lumps, spreadability of 23.75 ± 0.03 and drug content of 32.77 ± 0.20 mg/g. It had no physiological changes such as color shift or fluid exudate segregation after 6 months of storage at room temperature. In vitro drug release established the presence of a non-fickian mechanism and demonstrated dose-dependent antioxidant activity. Ex vivo findings indicated 21.97 ± 0.18% release, proving that the gel can permeate through the oral mucosal membrane. Our future research will concentrate on expanding the therapeutic scope by developing the formulation trial F10 to a nanoformulation and conducting clinical trials for its potential use in various oral diseases.

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has confused everyone, including healthcare experts, physicians and frontline workers. Monoclonal antibodies, anticoagulants and immunomodulatory therapy were initially used to treat COVID-19. However, they can only inhibit the virus from replicating, which is not enough to provide a lasting cure. As each month passes, a growing number of companies are working on vaccinations that will aid in the development of resistance against the corona virus. As a result, all regulatory bodies have stated that if a vaccine has high efficacy and low risk of adverse events, it will be approved through an emergency use application. However, there is one major hindrance: After completing phase II clinical trials with an emergency use application, the product can be released to the market. However, the firm should conduct phase III and phase IV trials at the same time, with peer review occurring after each cycle of clinical trials and also market data to be presented simultaneously to track adverse events. In this article, the author has compared the standard approval process (i.e. Standard Biological License application) with the emergency use application to describe how the COVID-19 vaccine was approved by the different regulatory bodies.

In globally, cancer is a second leading disease next to cardiovascular diseases in non-communicable diseases, which affect the all ages, sex, social status, ethnicity and primary cause of illness related death. Traditionally, systemic delivery drug systems like chemotherapy via oral capsule, injections of nanoparticles/micro particles, immunotherapy and others, which can inhibit or halt the progression of tumors. The short half-life of drugs which cannot achieve the targeted dose level to the tumor site and not able to target desired cell and commonly produces the organ toxicity. Recently, researchers have been attempting to direct delivery agents for cancer therapy. One of the best methods is a local therapy system, which deliver the drug directly via implantable procedure and it’s achieved the maximum concentration of the desire drug at the tumor site, non-target systemic exposure and minimize the organ toxicity to the patients. Biomaterial implants are widely used in the local concurrent delivery of chemotherapy and anti-angiogenic agents, local delivery of poly-chemotherapy, gene therapy as an alternative to drug delivery, scaffolds for cancer immunotherapy and polymer-based composites of drug molecules. There are different types of polymers like poly anhydride poly [bis (p-carboxy-phenoxy) propane-sebacic acid] copolymer [p(CPP:SA)], fatty acid dimer-sebacic acid copolymer (FAD-SA), poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid) copolymer (PLGA), poly (ε-caprolactone) (PCL), poly (glycerol monostearate-co-caprolactone), alginate and silica, used in successively cancer therapy. In order to minimize the risk of unwanted side effect of different types of biomaterials implants, it’s biocompatible to reduce the ability to elicit the inflammatory effect to the implanted area or the site. Therefore, the key role of choosing the appropriate and biocompatible implants to particular therapy is an indispensable. This should be validated with respect to risk benefit ratio in case of cancers. Biomaterial based implant local delivery systems provide more versatile and tailorable approach to against treatment of different types of the cancer.

The COVID-19 pandemic was the cause of the shortage of medicines, the spread of misinformation and the creation of obstacles to the accessibility of the health care system. Therefore, patients got a lot of fake claims about drug interactions, side effects, and availability. For the purposes of addressing these issues, Pharm-AI, an AI-powered chatbot, has been invented to give the patients the right and real-time information about the medicines they need, to help them find the nearest pharmacies, and to clarify any medication-related questions. Pharm-AI uses natural language processing with geolocation mapping to improve healthcare accessibility and decision-making. It uses data from very reliable sources such as PubMed, Scopus, Drug Central, and clinical trials to give evidence-based responses and thus to lower misinformation risks.Some preliminary analyses have demonstrated that Pharm-AI is a very successful tool in the fight against information overload that allows users to get sound drug-related insights very quickly. Its geolocation element provides the data needed to identify the pharmacies where the medicine is available. This results in a 65% decrease in the time needed to locate medications as compared to manual searches. Moreover, Pharm-AI helps people save money especially in the low-income regions by comparing the prices of generic and branded drugs and so, it stimulates the transparency of the costs. One of the weaknesses for example is the platform might have to depend on third party pharmaceutical companies’ inventories and the use of certain languages in regional dialects which are affective limitations. The new solutions will involve using optical character recognition (OCR) for prescription analysis, multilingual support, and affiliating with online pharmacies for automated medication delivery. Pharm-AI is a step forward in the development of AI-driven healthcare solutions, so it is going to make the health care system better and the information about the drugs more reliable.

The coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) outbreak has confused everyone, including healthcare experts, physicians and frontline workers. Monoclonal antibodies, anticoagulants and immunomodulatory therapy were initially used to treat COVID-19. However, they can only inhibit the virus from replicating, which is not enough to provide a lasting cure. As each month passes, a growing number of companies are working on vaccinations that will aid in the development of resistance against the corona virus. As a result, all regulatory bodies have stated that if a vaccine has high efficacy and low risk of adverse events, it will be approved through an emergency use application. However, there is one major hindrance: After completing phase II clinical trials with an emergency use application, the product can be released to the market. However, the firm should conduct phase III and phase IV trials at the same time, with peer review occurring after each cycle of clinical trials and also market data to be presented simultaneously to track adverse events. In this article, the author has compared the standard approval process (i.e. Standard Biological License application) with the emergency use application to describe how the COVID-19 vaccine was approved by the different regulatory bodies.