Nanoemulsion-based dosage forms for the transdermal drug delivery applications: A review of recent advances

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Nanoemulsion-based drug delivery approaches have witnessed massive acceptance over the years and acquired a significant foothold owing to their tremendous benefits over the others. It has widely been used for transdermal delivery of hydrophobic and hydrophilic drugs with solubility, lipophilicity, and bioavailability issues.

Areas covered

The review highlights the recent advancements and applications of transdermal nanoemulsions. Their utilities and characteristics, clinical pertinence showcasing intellectual properties and advancements, potential in treating disorders accompanying liquid, semisolid, and solid dosage forms, the ability to modulate a drug’s physicochemical properties, and regulatory status are thoroughly summarized.

Expert opinion

Despite tremendous therapeutic utilities and extensive investigations, the transdermal nanoemulsion-based technologies yet tackles several challenges such as optimum use of surfactant mixtures, economic burden due to high energy consumption during production, lack of concrete regulatory requirement, etc. Provided with the concrete guidelines on the safe use of surfactants, stability, use of scalable and economical methods, and the use of NE as a transdermal system would solve the purpose best as nanoemulsion shows remarkable improvement in drug release profiles and bioavailability of many drugs. Nevertheless, a better understanding of nanoemulsion technology holds a promising outlook and would land more opportunities and better delivery outcomes.

KEYWORDS:

• Drug delivery
• gel
• microneedle array
• nanoemulsion
• patch
• SNEDDS
• transdermal

Article highlights

• Nanoemulsions are the potential carrier systems exploited for the strategic delivery of various drugs through the intact skin, acting as an impenetrable barrier, owing to the beneficial features of nanodroplet size having high solubilization capacity and thermodynamic stability when compared to the conventional dosage forms.

• The properties of nanoemulsion that facilitate the transdermal delivery of the drugs are the nanosize droplets, the effect of its composition on the stratum corneum; specifically, the presence of emulsifiers on the oil and water interface, the types of nanoemulsion, and the types of the charge present on its surface.

• As the field of emulsion nanotechnology advances, the associated challenges are to be comprehended for consistent manufacture and storage.

• Drugs emulsified in the nanoemulsion system have been used to deliver the drugs into the systemic circulation to treat various diseases such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, osteoporosis, rheumatoid arthritis, etc.

• Transformation of nanoemulsions into liquid, solid or semisolid bases facilitate the dispensing of the pharmaceutical dosage forms by increasing the nanoemulsion’s viscosity, duration of availability over the skin, restricting the exposure on the undesired area of the skin, offering the ease of removal in the case of emergencies and controlling the drug release for a sufficiently long period.

• Employing integrated technologies aided with nanoemulsion offers more benefits and substantially modifies the overall performance of this technology for transdermal delivery of the drugs following trans-appendageal and trans-epidermal diffusion.

• This FDA’s guidance on nanotechnology does not establish legally enforceable responsibilities. Instead, it described FDA’s thinking on atopic and viewed only as recommendations unless specific regulatory or statutory requirements are cited.

This box summarizes key points contained in the article.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript. This includes employment, consultancies, honoraria, stock ownership or options, expert testimony, grants or patents received or pending, or royalties.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This paper was not funded.