Research Summary
Poor aqueous solubility of drugs remains a foremost challenge in pharmaceutical product development. The use of lipids in designing formulations provides an opportunity to enhance the aqueous solubility and consequently improve the bioavailability of drugs. Pre-dissolution of drugs in lipids, surfactants, or mixtures of lipid excipients and surfactants eliminates the dissolution step, which is likely to be the rate-limiting factor for oral absorption of poorly water-soluble drugs.
In this review, we comprehensively summarize lipid excipients in relation to their classification, absorption mechanisms, and lipid-based product development. Methodologies used for the preparation of solid and semi-solid lipid formulations, their applications, phase behavior, and the regulatory perspective of lipid excipients are also discussed.
Keywords: lipid excipients; bioavailability; poorly soluble drugs; lipid-based nanosystems; oral absorption; computational modeling.
<Access the full report below>