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Locust (Carob) bean gum (LBG) is a natural nonstarch galactomannan, nonionic branched heterogeneous seed gum utilized in various fields due to its flexible integral properties. Over the years, use of LBG and its hydrogel-derived formulations has gained popularity in food, pharmaceutical, biomedical, cosmetic, and other fields. Due to its flexible physicochemical properties, its viscoelastic, swellability, and release-retarding abilities have been improved by grafting or synergy with other compatible polymers without altering its biodegradable, biocompatible, nontoxic, or nonmutagenic characteristics. LBG has been used as a carrier in various drug delivery systems. Current trends in innovative techniques have evolved novel versions of LBG through various chemical modifications processes. LBG, in combination with other polymers and grafted forms, have been extensively used in fabrication of hydrogel-derived formulations with specific functions. Hydrogel derived from LBG responds to various stimuli that are required in the delivery of various therapeutic actives based on requirement of applications. This chapter is compiled on LBG and its derived hydrogels using reported scientific literature in depth to focus on LBG-derived hydrogel formulations and evaluations following its sources, properties, extraction, and processing of LBG powder and versatile applications in various fields to extend its utility in the future.

Biodegradable polymer such as hyaluronic acid (HA), also named as hyaluronan, has extensively created a broad range of platform for biomedical and drug delivery applications, since HA provides an intrinsic biological activity, when used as biomaterial. HA is a naturally occurring nontoxic, biocompatible, biodegradable, and nonimmunogenic linear polysaccharide composed of unbranched nonsulfated glycosaminoglycan and has widely found as a major element in extracellular matrix of vertebrate organism in body fluids and tissues such as synovial fluid, the vitreous humor of the eye, dermis of the skin and hyaline cartilage and as well as also found in some bacteria. HA as an ideal biomaterial, with unique physicochemical properties and chemical modifications have aimed in enhancing, modulating, or controlling the therapeutic action of target molecule and have encouraged researchers in further exploring its utilization in biomedical (wound healing and as tumor markers for different cancer types) and drug delivery applications through internalization of HA by cells through cluster determinant 44 (CD44) receptors during its enzymatic degradation, enabling intracellular delivery of drugs via conjugation to HA or entrapment in HA particles and in targeting anticancer drugs to tumor cells overexpressing CD44 receptors. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of the existing recent literature on the use of HA and its derivatives for further utilization in biomedical and drug delivery applications.

Biodegradable microspheres have gained popularity for delivering a wide variety of molecules via various routes. These types of products have been prepared using various natural and synthetic biodegradable polymers through suitable techniques for desired delivery of various challenging molecules. Selection of biodegradable polymers and technique play a key role in desired drug delivery.This review describes an overview of the fundamental knowledge and status of biodegradable microspheres in effective delivery of various molecules via desired routes with consideration of outlines of various compendial and non-compendial biodegradable polymers, formulation techniques and release mechanism of microspheres, patents and commercial biodegradable microspheres.There are various advantages of using biodegradable polymers including promise of development with different types of molecules. Biocompatibility, low dosage and reduced side effects are some reasons why usage biodegradable microspheres have gained in popularity. Selection of biodegradable polymers and formulation techniques to create microspheres is the biggest challenge in research. In the near future, biodegradable microspheres will become the eco-friendly product for drug delivery of various genes, hormones, proteins and peptides at specific site of body for desired periods of time.

Biopolymers or natural polymers are an attractive class of biodegradable polymers since they are derived from natural sources, easily available, relatively cheap and can be modified by suitable reagent. Locust bean gum is one of them that have a wide potentiality in drug formulations due to its extensive application as food additive and its recognized lack of toxicity. It can be tailored to suit its demands of applicants in both the pharmaceutical and biomedical areas. Locust bean gum has a wide application either in the field of novel drug delivery system as rate controlling excipients or in tissue engineering as scaffold formation. Through keen references of reported literature on locust bean gum, in this review, we have described critical aspects of locust bean gum, its manufacturing process, physicochemical properties and applications in various drug delivery systems.

A large number of plant based pharmaceutical excipients are available today. Gums and mucilages are the most commonly available plant ingredients with a wide range of applications in pharmaceutical and cosmetic industries. They are being used due to their abundance in nature, safety and economy. They have been extensively explored as pharmaceutical excipients. They are biocompatible, cheap and easily available. Natural materials have advantages over synthetic ones since they are chemically inert, nontoxic, less expensive, biodegradable and widely available. They can also be modified in different ways to obtain tailor-made materials for drug delivery systems and thus can compete with the available synthetic excipients. Recent trend toward the use of plant based and natural products demands the replacement of synthetic additives with natural ones. In this review, we describe the pharmaceutical applications of various natural gums, mucilages and their modified forms for the development of various drug delivery systems.

In recent era various technologies have been made in research and development of controlled release oral drug delivery system to overcome various physiological difficulties such as variation in gastric retention and emptying time. To overcome this drawback and to maximize the oral absorption of various drugs, novel drug delivery systems have been developed. Gastroretentive drug delivery system is facing many challenges which can be overcome by upcoming newly emerging approach i.e. raft forming system. The purpose of writing this review is to focus on recent development of stomach specific floating drug delivery system to circumvent the difficulties associated with formulation design. Various gastroretentive approaches that have been developed till now are also discussed. The present study provides valuable information & highlights advances in this raft forming system. This review attempts to discuss various factors like physiological factors, physicochemical factors and formulation factors to be considered in the development of the raft forming system. Different types of smart polymers used for their formulation have also been summarized. The review focuses on the mechanism, formulation and development of the raft forming system. This review also summarizes the studies to evaluate the performance and application of these systems. The study finally highlights advantages, disadvantages, and marketed preparation of the raft forming system.