[The pharmaceutical process: is the drug getting into the patient? Compliance of drug therapy and drug delivery].

There are two important factors that determine whether or not a drug is getting into the patient: compliance-adherence with therapy and systemic availability of the drug. Non-compliance is so common that it should be the first matter to be evaluated when drug therapy appears to be ineffective. On the other hand, when a drug is given orally besides drug absorption and presystemic elimination, there are other factors intrinsic to the formulation (pharmaceutical process) that may affect its ultimate systemic availability The pharmaceutical process is concerned with all those properties inherent in the pharmaceutical formulation and presentation of a drug that determine the speed at which a drug reaches the systemic circulation. These factors include the rate of disintegration of an orally given tablet and the rate of dissolution of the drug particles in the intestinal fluid. The pharmaceutical process is a clinically relevant pharmacotherapeutic process to modulate the speed of onset and intensity of the therapeutic effect of a drug.