During the past few years, interest in the development of novel drug delivery systems for existing drug molecules has been renewed. The development of a novel delivery system for existing drug molecules not only improves the drug's performance in terms of efficacy and safety but also improves patient compliance and overall therapeutic benefit to a significant extent. Transdermally delivered drugs avoid the risk and inconvenience of intravenous therapy, usually provide less chance of an overdose or underdose, allow easy termination, and permit both local and systemic treatment effects. Transdermal drug delivery offers controlled release of the drug into the patient, it enables a steady blood level profile, resulting in reduced systemic side effects and, sometimes, improved efficacy over other dosage forms. The main objective of transdermal drug delivery system is to deliver drugs into systemic circulation through skin at predetermined rate with minimal inter and intra patient variation. The growth rate for transdermal drug delivery systems is expected to increase 12% annually by 2007.
