Collective progress in drug delivery

Since September 1984, the Journal of Controlled Release (JCR) has published 300 issues as of April 2019. The 300th issue is a momentous one celebrating the roles that JCR has played over the last 35 years in the drug delivery field. The first sustained release formulations were 12-hour oral formulations based on the Spansule® technology by Smith Kline & French in 1952 [1]. The new controlled release formulations developed for the next 30 years changed the pharmaceutical industry through a very large number of oral and transdermal drug delivery systems, and most of the drug release mechanisms were developed during the same time period. JCR has documented the progress of the drug delivery field from 1984, and its published research papers have become diaries of the drug delivery researchers. Many scientists in different disciplines worked on the controlled release of active agents for agricultural, veterinary, and human applications, and they organized the first annual symposium on the topic in 1973. Shortly after, the Controlled Release Society (CRS) was established in 1978. Recognizing the need to have a forum to share the advances in the controlled drug delivery field, leading scientists at the time agreed on starting a new journal specializing in the drug delivery technology. JCR, as the official journal of the CRS, published its first issue in September 1984. The founding editors of JCR were Jorge Heller and Jan Feijen, two of the most respected and liked scientists in the drug delivery field at the time. In their first editorial, Jorge and Jan indicated that their goal was to make JCR the leading forum for high quality manuscripts …