Abstract

EMULSOMES: A LIPID BASED DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM

Vivek Gill* and Arun Nanda

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Abstract

Lipid based drug delivery system have been widely used for drug delivery in recent few decades. These drug delivery systems posses certain advantages of protecting drug from biological environment thereby enhances therapeutic efficacy. Various types of lipid based drug delivery system have been developed such as solid lipid nanoparticles, liposomes, emulsions, emulsomes, pharmacosomes, lipospheres, nanoemulsions, niosomes, transferosomes but emulsomes have gained attention due to certain characteristics which bypasses many problems associated with other systems. Emulsomes are novel lipid based system having internal solid lipid core surrounded by one or more envelop of phospholipid bilayer, advantageous particularly for lipophillic drugs. Lipophillic drugs are entrapped in lipid core as well as in between phospholipid bilayer, which enhances the encapsulation efficiency of lipophillic drugs. Emulsome protects entrapped drug from harsh gastric environment and degradation by gastric enzymes due to presence of triglycerides as core material, which are susceptible to degradation and also provide prolong existence of drug in systemic circulation. Apart from this, emulsomes have applications in tissue targeting, treatment of cancer, fungal infection, AIDS, dermal therapy and autoimmunity. This review is focused on lipid based drug delivery system with special emphasis on emulsomes, summarizing the success of emulsomes as drug carrier with advantages, structure, composition, method of preparation and its applications.

Keywords: Lipid based drug delivery, emulsomes, phospholipid bilayer, solid lipids, lipophillic drugs.