Fruits as nutraceuticals: A review of the main fruits included in nutraceutical patents.

Fruits have relevant usefulness in the elaboration of nutraceutical compositions and, as it is considered a "natural medicine", its market has been growing exponentially each year. Fruits, in general, contain a large source of phytochemicals, carbohydrates, vitamins, amino acids, peptides and antioxidants that are of interest to be prepared as nutraceuticals. The biological properties of its nutraceuticals can range from antioxidant, antidiabetic, antihypertensive, anti-Alzheimer, antiproliferative, antimicrobial, antibacterial, anti-inflammatory, among others. Furthermore, the need for innovative extraction methods and products reveals the importance of developing new nutraceutical compositions. This review was developed by searching patents of nutraceuticals from January 2015 until January 2022 in Espacenet, the search database of the European Patent Office (EPO). Of 215 patents related to nutraceuticals, 43% (92 patents) were including fruits, mainly berries. A great number of patents were focused on the treatment of metabolic diseases, representing 45% of the total patents. The principal patent applicant was the United States of America (US), with 52%. The patents were applied by researchers, industries, research centers and institutes. It is important to highlight that from 92 fruit nutraceutical patent applications reviewed, 13 already have their products available on the market.

Recent Progress in Self-Emulsifying Drug Delivery Systems: A Systematic Patent Review (2011-2020).

Self-emulsifying drug delivery systems (SEDDS) are lipid-based isotropic mixtures that enhance the bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drugs and reduce the possible side effects, offering a wide variety of treatments for several pathologies. The aim of this review is to discuss the state of the art of patents for this drug delivery system by studying recent patent applications (2011 to 2020). We performed a thorough screening using the European Patent Office's Espacenet database, from which 37 inventions were selected and fully studied. China had more patent applications, and the articles published about SEDDS exceeds both in number and technological advance the submitted inventions. Nevertheless, the patents presented herein are innovative to address known issues to traditional SEDDS, including storage and formulation stability, solid formulations, acute gastrointestinal toxicity from surfactants, and drug delivery through alternative routes of administration. This study also revealed that release behavior for SEDDS and associated pharmacokinetics were not completely disclosed by the inventors of the patents and that further studies are required.