Essential considerations towards development of effective nasal antibiotic formulation: features, strategies, and future directions

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Intranasal antibiotic products are gaining popularity as a promising method of administering antibiotics, which provide numerous benefits, e.g. enhancing drug bioavailability, reducing adverse effects, and potentially minimizing resistance threats. However, some issues related to the antibiotic substances and nasal route challenges must be addressed to prepare effective formulations.

Areas covered

This review focuses on the valuable points of nasal delivery as an alternative route for administering antibiotics, coupled with the challenges in the nasal cavity that might affect the formulations. Moreover, this review also highlights the application of nasal delivery to introduce antibiotics for local therapy, brain targeting, and systemic effects that have been conducted. In addition, this viewpoint provides strategies to maintain antibiotic stability and several crucial aspects to be considered for enabling effective nasal formulation.

Expert opinion

In-depth knowledge and understanding regarding various key considerations with respect to the antibiotic substances and nasal route delivery requirement in preparing effective nasal antibiotic formulation would greatly improve the development of nasally administered antibiotic products, enabling better therapeutic outcomes of antibiotic treatment and establishing appropriate use of antibiotics, which in turn might reduce the chance of antibiotic resistance and enhance patient comfort.

KEYWORDS:

• Nasal route
• nasal formulation
• antibiotic
• drug stability
• intranasal delivery
• nasal challenges

Article highlights

• The advantages of nasal route administration for introducing antibiotic substance.

• Various influencing factors in nasal cavity and also the antibiotics for nasal application.

• Applied methods for maintaining the stability of antibiotic substances.

• Essential considerations regarding formulation strategies to enhance the effectiveness of nasal antibiotic preparation.

Acknowledgments

All figures were created using BioRender (https://biorender.com/).

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 work was supported by Project No. TKP2021-EGA-32 implemented with support provided by the Ministry of Innovation and Technology of Hungary from the National Research, Development, and Innovation Fund, financed under the TKP2021-EGA funding scheme.