21FLOATING DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM: A SCIENTIFIC VIEWFloating drug delivery systems (FDDS) has been recently developed and evolved as a rate controlled drug delivery systems to overcome the physiological serendipities such as limited gastric residence time and unpredictable gastric emptying. Gastric retention time (GRT) is the main objective to formulate such type of novel drug delivery systems, to prolong the gastric retention time. Several approaches are currently being used including floating drug delivery system (FDDS) which is also known as Hydrodynamically balanced system (HBS), swelling and expanding systems, high – density systems, bioadhesive systems, modified shape systems and other delayed gastric emptying devices. Floating drug delivery systems are of particular interest for those drugs that are locally active and have narrow absorption window in stomach or upper small intestine, and exhibit low solubility at high pH values. This review article gives detailed information on the pharmaceutical basis for their design, classification, advantages, limitations, recent advancements and potential of floating drug delivery systems in futuremurulisep27@gmail.comReview312013Floating drug delivery systems,Gastric retention time,Rate controlled systems,Recent advancements,ApplicationsKK Muraleedhar,Mohammad Ali, S Parthiban,SK SenthilkumarDepartment of Pharmaceutics, Bharathi College of Pharmacy, Bharathinagara, Mandya, Karnataka – 571422, India,Department of Pharmaceutics, Bharathi College of Pharmacy, Bharathinagara, Mandya, Karnataka – 571422, India,Department of Pharmaceutics, Bharathi College of Pharmacy, Bharathinagara, Mandya, Karnataka – 571422, India,Department of Pharmaceutics, Bharathi College of Pharmacy, Bharathinagara, Mandya, Karnataka – 571422, India