Sucrose acetate isobutyrate (SAIB), a randomly substituted sucrose approximating sucrose diacetate hexaisobutyrate, is produced by Eastman Chemical Company for a variety of applications. SAIB is widely used in the food industry as a weighting agent to disperse flavoring oils in primarily citrus-based soft drink beverages. Additionally, SAIB is currently being marketed by another company as a parenteral drug delivery system. The studies reported here focused on investigating SAIB as an excipient, or delivery vehicle, for use in oral delivery of several drugs, including ibuprofen, saquinavir, and clarithromycin. Dissolution experiments were conducted using both ibuprofen and caffeine, and results suggest that SAIB can be used in dosage forms to control release rate. Pharmacokinetic studies in which laboratory rats were dosed with formulations containing drugs such as ibuprofen, saquinavir, and clarithromycin suggest that SAIB may act to reduce animal-to-animal variability in drug concentration profiles in some cases, and that it may also enhance gastroretention of the dosage forms. Finally, dosage form imaging studies suggest but do not reliably confirm that SAIB may aid in promoting gastric retention, which would make its use in dosage form formulation beneficial for administration of drugs whose action is intended to occur in the stomach.