Maximising success in multidrug formulation development: A review

Patient compliance will soon become one of the most critical challenges in modern healthcare. Due in part to our aging population, the rise in the number of chronic conditions will cause increasing stress on global healthcare systems, magnifying current problems. The solutions employed to improve compliance have failed to deliver and the medical community have turned to Multidrug Formulations (MDFs), to provide an answer. This work summarises key challenges and subsequent solutions developed by formulation scientists when designing new MDFs, examining their rationale and highlighting successes to-date. Current and emerging MDF strategies are reviewed alongside a discussion of how the scientific community can bring these ideas from the benchtop to the clinic. Examples have been highlighted where teams have delivered scientific novelty, but a lack of clinical appreciation reduces their likelihood of patient impact. Potential gaps within the literature are identified where new, novel or modernised approaches could make a significant impact on patients. [Display omitted] •Multidrug formulations (MDFs) demonstrate improved clinical outcomes in clinical trials.•Multidisciplinary working is stressed as an essential component of MDF design.•An analysis of MDFs in development provides a promising outlook for the field.•Readers are shown how to rationally design MDFs using concepts discussed.•Pertinent research questions that still need to be answered are illuminated.