Pharmaceutical Scientists Rally Around Particle Engineering in Push From Lab Bench to Marketed Medicine

The Journal of Pharmaceutical Investigation has announced a special issue devoted to translational advances in pharmaceutical dosage form development, with particle engineering and formulation science at its core. The issue, tentatively titled Translational Advances in Pharmaceutical Dosage Form Development Based on Particle Engineering and Formulation Science, is scheduled for publication in January 2027, with a submission deadline of June 30, 2026. It will be curated by three guest editors from South Korea: Sung-Joo Hwang of Yonsei University, Min-Soo Kim of Pusan National University, and Heejun Park of Duksung Women’s University. The announcement signals that one of Asia’s leading pharmaceutical research journals intends to make the often-overlooked craft of turning molecules into medicines a centerpiece of its editorial agenda.

The scope of the issue is deliberately broad, spanning six thematic areas that together map the full journey of a drug product from early-stage design to commercial manufacture. These include particle engineering approaches for enhancing solubility, stability, and bioavailability; advanced formulation strategies for oral, injectable, inhalable, transdermal, and other dosage forms; solid-state characterization and control; translational formulation science and the scale-up of drug products; emerging manufacturing technologies in dosage form design and commercial production; and the application of Quality by Design and Process Analytical Technology frameworks to formulation and manufacturing. Together, the topics describe a discipline that sits at the hinge between synthetic chemistry and clinical medicine, where the physical form of a compound can determine whether an innovative drug ever helps a patient.

The emphasis on particle engineering reflects a well-known bottleneck in modern drug development. A large fraction of newly discovered drug candidates are poorly soluble in water, which limits their absorption in the gastrointestinal tract and forces formulators to find creative ways to deliver an effective dose. Particle engineering tackles this problem at its root by manipulating crystal form, particle size, shape, and surface properties. Techniques such as micronization, nanosizing, spray drying, hot-melt extrusion, and controlled crystallization can dramatically increase the effective surface area of a drug or convert it into a more soluble amorphous state, thereby boosting bioavailability without altering the molecule itself.

Solid-state science is the quiet foundation beneath these efforts. The same drug molecule can crystallize into multiple distinct forms, known as polymorphs, each with its own solubility, stability, and mechanical behavior. A change in crystal form during manufacturing or storage can cause a formulation to fail regulatory specifications or lose potency, a risk that has derailed commercial products in the past. The special issue’s focus on solid-state characterization and control underscores how much attention is now devoted to selecting, monitoring, and locking in the right physical form early in development, using tools such as X-ray powder diffraction, differential scanning calorimetry, Raman spectroscopy, and dynamic vapor sorption to fingerprint every batch.

The translational dimension of the issue is equally significant. In pharmaceutical parlance, translation means the movement of a formulation concept out of the research laboratory and into robust, reproducible, large-scale production. A tablet or suspension that works beautifully on a small benchtop mixer can behave entirely differently in a two-thousand-liter industrial vessel, where mixing efficiency, drying rates, and heat transfer change dramatically. Formulation scientists increasingly design experiments to anticipate these scale effects from the outset, selecting excipients and unit operations that can be transferred to the plant without compromising product quality. Papers addressing scale-up of drug products will speak directly to one of the most persistent pain points in the industry.

Emerging manufacturing technologies represent another pillar of the call for papers. Continuous manufacturing, in which raw materials flow through an integrated production line rather than moving in discrete batches, has gained regulatory acceptance in recent years and promises tighter process control, smaller facility footprints, and faster response to demand. Additive manufacturing, including 3D printing of dosage forms, allows drug products with complex release profiles or personalized doses to be fabricated layer by layer. These technologies dovetail with the special issue’s interest in quality frameworks, because continuous and digital manufacturing depend on real-time data streams to keep every unit of product within specification.

That dependence explains the prominence of Quality by Design and Process Analytical Technology, two paradigms that have reshaped how regulators and manufacturers think about pharmaceutical quality. Quality by Design asks developers to build scientific understanding of how formulation and process variables affect the final product, so that quality is designed into the medicine rather than tested in afterward. Process Analytical Technology supplies the instrumentation for that approach, embedding sensors such as near-infrared and Raman probes directly into mixers, dryers, and tablet presses so that critical quality attributes can be measured during production. The special issue’s inclusion of these frameworks signals an interest in submissions that demonstrate not just novel formulations but principled, data-driven development strategies that regulators can evaluate with confidence.

The range of dosage routes covered in the call reflects the diversity of modern drug delivery. Oral solid dosage forms remain the dominant commercial product class, but injectable biologics, inhalable powders for respiratory disease, and transdermal patches each impose their own particle and formulation requirements. Inhaled medicines, for example, depend on exquisitely controlled particle sizes, typically in the range of one to five micrometers, to deposit drug in the deep lung rather than the throat. Injectable suspensions must balance particle size against needle clogging and long-term physical stability. Transdermal systems require drug molecules to permeate the skin at therapeutic rates, often aided by penetration enhancers or engineered adhesive matrices. A journal issue that spans all of these routes implicitly argues that the underlying science of particles and formulations is a common language across delivery platforms.

Underlying all of these themes is a candid acknowledgment that drug delivery has become one of the decisive factors in whether new therapies succeed. Many biologics require sophisticated formulations to survive manufacturing, storage, and administration; small molecules increasingly need enabling technologies to achieve adequate oral exposure; and combination products must integrate devices with drug formulations in seamless designs. By soliciting work that moves from molecular-level particle design to commercial production, the guest editors are positioning the special issue as a venue for research with direct industrial relevance, not merely laboratory novelty. The January 2027 publication date gives prospective authors roughly a year and a half from the announcement window to prepare manuscripts, a timeline consistent with the journal’s aim of assembling a coherent snapshot of the field rather than a loose collection of incremental studies.

For researchers working at the intersection of materials science, chemical engineering, and pharmaceutics, the call for papers arrives at a moment when the boundaries between those disciplines are dissolving. Machine learning is being used to predict polymorph stability and optimize formulation compositions, process models built from first principles are replacing purely empirical scale-up rules, and real-time analytics are turning manufacturing lines into data-generating laboratories. The special issue’s six topics read, in that light, as an invitation to demonstrate that particle engineering and formulation science are no longer supporting disciplines but central engines of pharmaceutical innovation, capable of rescuing otherwise unpromising molecules and delivering them to patients in forms that are stable, manufacturable, and clinically effective.

Subject of Research: Pharmaceutical formulation science and particle engineering for drug dosage form development

Article Title: Special Issue: Translational Advances in Pharmaceutical Dosage Form Development Based on Particle Engineering and Formulation Science

Article References: Special Issue: Translational Advances in Pharmaceutical Dosage Form Development Based on Particle Engineering and Formulation Science. (n.d.). Original publication

Image Credits: AI Generated

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Keywords: particle engineering, formulation science, drug delivery, bioavailability, solid-state characterization, Quality by Design, Process Analytical Technology, continuous manufacturing, scale-up, dosage forms, pharmaceutics, translational research