Pharmaceutical particle technologies: An approach to improve drug solubility, dissolution and bioavailability

Pharmaceutical particle technology is employed to improve poor aqueous solubility of drug compounds that limits in vivo bioavailability owing to their low dissolution rate in the gastrointestinal fluids following oral administration.The particle technology involves several approaches from the conventional size reduction processes to the newer,novel particle technologies that modify the solubility properties of the drugs and produce solid,powdered form of the drugs that are readily soluble in water and can be easily formulated into various dosage forms.This review highlights the solid particle technologies available for improving solubility,dissolution and bioavailability of drugs with poor aqueous solubility.

Overview of milling techniques for improving the solubility of poorly water-soluble drugs

Milling involves the application of mechanical energy to physically break down coarse particles to finer ones and is regarded as a“topedown”approach in the production of fine particles.Fine drug particulates are especially desired in formulations designed for parenteral,respiratory and transdermal use.Most drugs after crystallization may have to be comminuted and this physical transformation is required to various extents,often to enhance processability or solubility especially for drugs with limited aqueous solubility.The mechanisms by which milling enhances drug dissolution and solubility include alterations in the size,specific surface area and shape of the drug particles as well as millinginduced amorphization and/or structural disordering of the drug crystal(mechanochemical activation).Technology advancements in milling now enable the production of drug micro-and nano-particles on a commercial scale with relative ease.This review will provide a background on milling followed by the introduction of common milling techniques employed for the micronization and nanonization of drugs.Salient information contained in the cited examples are further extracted and summarized for ease of reference by researchers keen on employing these techniques for drug solubility and bioavailability enhancement.

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles for drug and gene delivery

Mesoporous silica nanoparticles(MSNs) are attracting increasing interest for potential biomedical applications. With tailored mesoporous structure, huge surface area and pore volume,selective surface functionality, as well as morphology control, MSNs exhibit high loading capacity for therapeutic agents and controlled release properties if modified with stimuli-responsive groups, polymers or proteins. In this review article, the applications of MSNs in pharmaceutics to improve drug bioavailability, reduce drug toxicity, and deliver with cellular targetability are summarized. Particularly,the exciting progress in the development of MSNs-based effective delivery systems for poorly soluble drugs, anticancer agents, and therapeutic genes are highlighted.

Fundamental aspects of solid dispersion technology for poorly soluble drugs

The solid dispersion has become an established solubilization technology for poorly water soluble drugs.Since a solid dispersion is basically a drug-polymer two-component system,the drug-polymer interaction is the determining factor in its design and performance.In this review,we summarize our current understanding of solid dispersions both in the solid state and in dissolution,emphasizing the fundamental aspects of this important technology.

Crystalline inclusion complexes formed between the drug diflunisal and block copolymers

The solid form of drugs plays a central role in optimizing the physicochemical properties of drugs,and new solid forms will provide more options to achieve the desirable pharmaceutical profiles of drugs.Recently,certain drugs have been found to form crystalline inclusion complexes（ICs） with multiple types of linear polymers,representing a new subcategory of pharmaceutical solids.In this study,we used diflunisal（DIF） as the model drug host and extended the guest of drug/polymer ICs from homopolymers to block copolymers of poly（ethylene glycol）（PEG） and poly（s-caprolactone）（PCL）.The block length in the guest copolymers showed a significant influence on the formation,thermal stability and dissolution behavior of the DIF ICs.Though the PEG block could hardly be included alone,it could indeed be included in the DIF ICs when the PCL block was long enough.The increase of the PCL block length produced IC crystals with improved thermal stability.The dissolution profiles of DIF/block copolymer ICs exhibited gradually decreased aqueous solubility and dissolution rate with the increasing PCL block length.These results demonstrate the possibility of using drug/polymer ICs to modulate the desired pharmaceutical profiles of drugs in a predictable and controllable manner.

Use of the liquisolid compact technique for improvement of the dissolution rate of valsartan

The aim of this study was to improve the dissolution rate of the poorly soluble drug valsartan by delivering the drug as a liquisolid compact.Liquisolid compacts were prepared using propylene glycol as solvent,Avicel PH102 as carrier,and Aerosil 200 as the coating material.The crystallinity of the newly formulated drug and the interaction between excipients was examined by X-ray powder diffraction and Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy,respectively.The dissolution studies for the liquisolid formula-tion and the marketed product were carried out at different pH values.The results showed no change in the crystallinity of the drug and no interaction between excipients.The dissolution efficiency of valsartan at 15 min was increased from 4.02% for plain drug and 13.58% for marketed product to 29.47% for the liquisolid formulation.The increase in the dissolution rate was also found to be significant compared to the marketed product at lower pH values,simulating the gastric environment where valsartan is largely absorbed.The liquisolid technique appears to be a promising approach for improving the dissolution of poorly soluble drugs like valsartan.