Food-inspired innovations to improve the stability of active pharmaceutical ingredients

Food-processing and pharmaceutical industries share a lot of stability issues against the same physical, chemical, and microbiological phenomena. They also share some solutions to improve the stability as the use of preservatives and packaging. Ecological concerns lead to the development of tremendous innovations in food. Some of these innovations could also be beneficial in the pharmaceutical domain. The objective of this review is to evaluate the potential application of these findings in the pharmaceutical field and the main limits in terms of toxicity, environmental, economic and regulatory issues. The principal factors influencing the shelf-life were highlighted through the description of the stability studies usually performed in the pharmaceutical industry (according to European guidelines). To counter those factors, different solutions are currently available as preservatives and specific packaging. They were described and debated with an overview of recent food innovations in each field. The limits of the current solutions in the pharmaceutical field and the innovation in the food field have inspired a critical pharmaceutical outlook. The active and intelligent packaging for active pharmaceutical ingredients of the future is imagined.