An overview of recent patents on composition of mucoadhesive drug delivery systems.

Mucoadhesion began to be applied to therapeutic systems with the aim of the incorporation of bioadhesive molecules into pharmaceutical dosage forms intended to keep in close contact with the tissue, releasing the drug near the action site, thereby increasing its bioavailability and promoting local or systemic effects. Different mucoadhesive materials and dosage forms have been studied, since the properties of mucoadhesion largely depend on the features of the material used in its preparation. This mini-review focuses on mucoadhesive therapeutic systems, the main mucosal routes of administration, and materials used to prepare the systems over the last five years. Patents and applications were reviewed, categorized and the materials were described together with the proposed systems.