Wearable patches for transdermal drug delivery

Transdermal drug delivery systems (TDDs) avoid gastrointestinal degradation and hepatic first-pass metabolism, providing good drug bioavailability and patient compliance. One emerging type of TDDs is the wearable patch worn on the skin surface to deliver medication through the skin. They can generally be grouped into passive and active types, depending on the properties of materials, design principles and integrated devices. This review describes the latest advancement in the development of wearable patches, focusing on the integration of stimulus-responsive materials and electronics. This development is deemed to provide a dosage, temporal, and spatial control of therapeutics delivery.