Exploring the potential of solid dispersion for improving solubility, dissolution & bioavailability of herbal extracts, enriched fractions, and bioactives

Abstract

Most drugs' poor aqueous solubility has emerged as a significant challenge in achieving proper therapeutic response following oral administration. Herbal drugs are being used from time immemorial to prevent, mitigate, and cure multiple diseases. However, most of the bioactives phytoconstituents possess limited aqueous solubility & poor oral bioavailability. Solid dispersion (SD) has been realised as an efficient formulation to overcome hydrophobic candidates' solubility issues and improve their oral bioavailability. The current review mainly explores the potential of SD for improving solubility, dissolution & bioavailability of herbal extracts, enriched fractions, and isolated bioactives. Hence, basics of SD, selection of excipients, need for SD of plant products, SD of plant products, selection of preparation method, the chemistry of phytoconstituent-excipient interaction, and hurdles associated with SD of herbal extract/enriched fraction were explored in this review. The SD has the potential to overcome solubility, dissolution, and oral bioavailability issues of poorly soluble phytoconstituents.

Keywords:

• Solid dispersion
• NDDS
• formulation
• bioavailability
• herbal drug

Acknowledgement

The authors are thankful to the Indian Institute of Technology (Banaras Hindu University), Varanasi, India, for giving infrastructural facilities. Also, the financial support for this work provided as a scholarship by the Ministry of Human Resource Development (MHRD), Government of India is highly acknowledged.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

AKA is thankful to Science & Engineering Research Board (SERB), Department of Science and Technology (DST), New Delhi, India, for providing the funding [File No. SRG/2019/000150] for exploring the smart exosomes for drug delivery. ANS is thankful to Department of Biotechnology (DBT), Ministry of Science & Technology, Government of India, New Delhi, India, for providing the funding [Sanction order No.: BT/PR25498/NER/95/1223/2017] for exploring phytochemical and pharmacological evaluations of bioactivity guided fractions of medicinal plants.