Non-linear phenomena pervade the pharmaceutical sciences. Understanding the interface between each of these phenomena and the way in which they contribute to overarching processes such as pharmaceutical product development may ultimately result in more efficient, less costly and rapid implementation. The benefit to Society is self-evident in that affordable treatments would be rapidly forthcoming. We have aggregated these phenomena into one topic "Pharmaco-complexity: Non-linear Phenomena and Drug Product Development".

The pace of new research and level of innovation repeatedly introduced into the field of drug delivery to the lung is surprising given its state of maturity since the introduction of the pressurized metered dose inhaler over a half a century ago. It is clear that our understanding of pulmonary drug delivery has now evolved to the point that inhalation aerosols can be controlled both spatially and temporally to optimize their biological effects. These abilities include controlling lung deposition, by adopting formulation strategies or device technologies, and controlling drug uptake and release through sophisticated particle technologies. The large number of contributions to the scientific literature and variety of excellent texts published in recent years is evidence for the continued interest in pulmonary drug delivery research. This reference text endeavors to bring together the fundamental theory and practice of controlled drug delivery to the airways that is unavailable elsewhere. Collating and synthesizing the material in this rapidly evolving field presented a challenge and ultimately a sense of achievement that is hopefully reflected in the content of the volume.

Particularly in healthcare fields, there is growing movement away from traditional lecture style course towards active learning and team-based activities to improve learning and build higher level thinking through application of complex problems with a strong foundation of facts and data. Essential Pharmaceutics is suited to this modern teaching style, and is the first book of its kind to provide the resources and skills needed for successful implementation of an active learning pharmaceutics course.This text offers a format that is specifically suited for integration in an active learning, team-based classroom setting. It is ideal for self-learning for the beginning pharmaceutics student, based upon the extensive utilization of figures, tables, and its overview of essential topics in pharmaceutics. Also unique to this text is the integration of case studies based upon modern pharmaceutical products which are designed to reinforce importance pharmaceutical concepts and teach essential skills in literature review and patent searching. Case studies covering all topics covered in the text have been developed by the authors that allow application of the content in the flipped-classroom pharmaceutical course.

The pace of new research and level of innovation repeatedly introduced into the field of drug delivery to the lung is surprising given its state of maturity since the introduction of the pressurized metered dose inhaler over a half a century ago. It is clear that our understanding of pulmonary drug delivery has now evolved to the point that inhalation aerosols can be controlled both spatially and temporally to optimize their biological effects. These abilities include controlling lung deposition, by adopting formulation strategies or device technologies, and controlling drug uptake and release through sophisticated particle technologies. The large number of contributions to the scientific literature and variety of excellent texts published in recent years is evidence for the continued interest in pulmonary drug delivery research. This reference text endeavors to bring together the fundamental theory and practice of controlled drug delivery to the airways that is unavailable elsewhere. Collating and synthesizing the material in this rapidly evolving field presented a challenge and ultimately a sense of achievement that is hopefully reflected in the content of the volume.

Non-linear phenomena pervade the pharmaceutical sciences. Understanding the interface between each of these phenomena and the way in which they contribute to overarching processes such as pharmaceutical product development may ultimately result in more efficient, less costly and rapid implementation. The benefit to Society is self-evident in that affordable treatments would be rapidly forthcoming. We have aggregated these phenomena into one topic "Pharmaco-complexity: Non-linear Phenomena and Drug Product Development".

Particularly in healthcare fields, there is growing movement away from traditional lecture style course towards active learning and team-based activities to improve learning and build higher level thinking through application of complex problems with a strong foundation of facts and data. Essential Pharmaceutics is suited to this modern teaching style, and is the first book of its kind to provide the resources and skills needed for successful implementation of an active learning pharmaceutics course.This text offers a format that is specifically suited for integration in an active learning, team-based classroom setting. It is ideal for self-learning for the beginning pharmaceutics student, based upon the extensive utilization of figures, tables, and its overview of essential topics in pharmaceutics. Also unique to this text is the integration of case studies based upon modern pharmaceutical products which are designed to reinforce importance pharmaceutical concepts and teach essential skills in literature review and patent searching. Case studies covering all topics covered in the text have been developed by the authors that allow application of the content in the flipped-classroom pharmaceutical course.

The interpretation of physical, chemical and biological phenomena as linear relationships between variables, or as simple functions of the variables, has been a significant scientific and mathematical strategy to their elucidation for centuries. It is often the case that the nature of linearity is to follow mathematical functions, e.g. power, exponential or logarithmic functions, nevertheless the desire to fit data to simple predictable expressions is imbued in every scientist and engineer. From a philosophical standpoint there is no reason to criticize this approach as it allows us to interpret the natural world and has a lofty heritage going back to the classical world.

However, non-linear phenomena have been identified in many fields and interpreted as periodic, catastrophic, chaotic or complex involving a variety of mathematical tools for analysis. Benoit Mandelbrot s now classic book on the fractal geometry of nature and the many subsequent texts, most recently Wolfram s magnum opus "A New Kind of Science" have raised questions about the nature of reality and the interpretation of observed phenomena. It seems clear that the complexity of dynamic events (on any scale) can rarely be explained by linear interpretations. The rare exceptions are likely to represent a convergence of multiple phenomena giving the appearance of a linear relationship between variables.

In fields related to pharmaceutical sciences some texts have been written by pioneers such as Brian Kaye. His eminently readable "A random walk through fractal dimensions" and "Chaos and complexity" were seminal volumes for the editors. Tracing the mathematics of complexity back to the nineteenth century and beyond gives a validity to the search for more accurate interpretations of experimental observations that should impact on the pharmaceutical sciences as significantly as other fields of endeavor.

The chemistry and physics literature is replete with papers on complexity from such notables as Ilya Prigogine and Murray Gell-Mann. A broad range of biological phenomena, the most complex imaginable from molecular biology to ecology, are now the subject of complexity analysis. Pharmaceutical sciences encompass the biology, chemistry, physics and mathematics associated with drug discovery, delivery, disposition and action. This text describes a range of topics of importance in the pharmaceutical sciences that indicate a need for a non-linear interpretation if they are to be characterized accurately, understood fully and potentially controlled or modulated in the service of improved therapeutic strategies.

It is likely that the future will involve increasingly complex interpretations of data related to drug design and delivery, particularly as our knowledge of the human genome leads inexorably to the potential for individualized therapy. We hope that this text will promote discussion of the varied phenomena leading to pharmacological effect and the complex interactions ultimately resulting in improved disease control and health maintenance."