Contribution of biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics to improve drug therapy.

Efficacy, safety and costs are the elements defining the quality of pharmacological therapy. Several clinical studies have shown the contribution of pharmacokinetics and biopharmaceutics to different treatment responses. During the past few years, new drugs with very interesting properties, such as good oral bioavailability, wide tissue distribution and slow elimination rate, have been introduced. It has allowed improvement in the patient's treatment, and has introduced new therapeutic possibilities. The development of new drug delivery systems has facilitated achieving certain pharmacodynamic effects and overcoming some pharmacokinetic disadvantages of conventional formulations. This achievement has been a biopharmaceutical challenge in answer to a clinical need. Therapeutic drug monitoring in wide populations has permitted improvements in the design of new dosage regimens in order to ameliorate the therapeutic efficacy for different groups of drugs: antibiotics, antineoplastics, cardiovascular agents etc. Pharmacokinetic criteria have to be considered as a clinical strategy to increase the accuracy when making decisions about dosage individualization. Individual patients, other patient populations, and also the use of usually unmonitored drugs, take advantage of therapeutic monitoring benefits. The contribution of biopharmaceutics and pharmacokinetics has been important for obtaining maximum efficacy with minimal side-effects and cost optimization.