Bioavailability is a measure of the fraction of the administered dose that reaches the systemic circulation.

Absolute bioavailability is the fraction of the total dose that reaches the systemic circulation. It can have values between zero when the drug is not absorbed at all to 1 when all the administered dose reaches the systemic circulation. The absolute bioavailability can be expressed in terms of percentage (0% - 100%).

The relative bioavailability is the bioavailability of a drug product relative to the bioavailability of another drug product (reference standard preparation). The relative bioavailability can take any value above zero. It can be more than one when the product under investigation has bioavailability higher than that of the reference standard.