Nanocrystals for enhancement of oral bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drugs

• Main Authors: Varaporn Buraphacheep Junyaprasert, Boontida Morakul
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Elsevier 2015-02-01
• Series: Asian Journal of Pharmaceutical Sciences
• Subjects: Nanocrystals; Bioavailability; Poorly water-soluble drugs
• Online Access: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1818087614000555

Nanocrystals, a carrier-free colloidal delivery system in nano-sized range, is an interesting approach for poorly soluble drugs. Nanocrystals provide special features including enhancement of saturation solubility, dissolution velocity and adhesiveness to surface/cell membranes. Several strategies are applied for nanocrystals production including precipitation, milling, high pressure homogenization and combination methods such as NanoEdge™, SmartCrystal and Precipitation-lyophilization-homogenization (PLH) technology. For oral administration, many publications reported useful advantages of nanocrystals to improve in vivo performances i.e. pharmacokinetics, pharmacodynamics, safety and targeted delivery which were discussed in this review. Additionally, transformation of nanocrystals to final formulations and future trends of nanocrystals were also described.