Gastro-Retentive Drug Delivery Systems (GRDDs) as a Promising Strategy for Disease Targeting: A Comprehensive Review

This review aims to comprehensively analyze Gastro-Retentive Drug Delivery Systems (GRDDs), emphasizing their potential to enhance therapeutic efficacy through prolonged gastric retention and targeted drug release. It explores various GRDD approaches, their design, evaluation parameters, and their role in disease-specific targeting. Oral drug delivery remains the most convenient and widely used route of administration; however, conventional oral formulations often face limitations, such as poor bioavailability (BA) and suboptimal therapeutic outcomes, due to rapid gastric emptying. GRDDs have emerged as an innovative solution to overcome these drawbacks by extending the gastric residence time of drugs. This review synthesizes data from peer-reviewed journals, scientific databases, and clinical reports published over the past ten years (1st March 2015-1 st March 2025). The selection criteria included studies focusing on different GRDD techniques, formulation strategies, and in-vitro performance assessments, highlighting patent considerations and the clinical relevance of GRDDs. The literature indicates that GRDDs enhance the pharmacokinetics of drugs absorbed in the upper gastrointestinal tract, offering improved BA, targeted delivery, reduced dosing frequency, and better therapeutic outcomes. Polymers and excipients used in GRDDs are crucial for controlling drug release and maintaining gastric retention. GRDDs therefore provide a promising approach for targeted oral delivery, particularly for drugs absorbed in the stomach or upper intestine. Continued innovation in design, materials, and techniques, especially advances in polymers and nanotechnology, is essential to further improve precision, patient compliance, and treatment outcomes.