Prototyping and Evaluating a Novel Humanoid Chewing Robot for Drug Delivery using a Medicated Chewing Gum

The global pharmaceutical market in 2009 was estimated at $837 billion and the US had a largest market share worth $300 billion per annum. It is estimated that the market could be worth nearly $1.6 trillion by 2020. The global drug delivery market in 2016 was estimated to be worth $510 billion which is a third of the global pharmaceutical market . It is expected that the drug delivery market will be increased to around $900 billion by the year 2025. Medicated chewing gum (MCG) is a new advanced drug delivery method, with a promising future. Its potential has not yet been fully exploited because there is no gold standard methodology currently exists for testing chewing gum dissolution and current in-vitro apparatus/chewing machines cannot simulate the human chewing action and forces accurately to influence drug release rate because of the complexities involved in mastication. Also, most of these devices do not have the ability to combine mastication, saliva and chewing gum similar to human and subsequently measure the release of compounds from chewing gums.

The aim of this study is to validate the use of the newly developed humanoid chewing simulator to extract xylitol from commercially available chewing gum in-vivo using human participants* and in-vitro by quantifying its release over time.

*A favourable ethical approval was granted for this study by the University of Bristol Faculty of Health Sciences Research Ethics Committee. Application No. 30882.