Skin drug delivery using lipid vesicles: A starting guideline for their development

Lipid vesicles can provide a cost-effective enhancement of skin drug absorption when vesicle production process is optimised. It is an important challenge to design the ideal vesicle, since their properties and features are related, as changes in one affect the others. Here, we review the main components, preparation and characterization methods commonly used, and the key properties that lead to highly efficient vesicles for transdermal drug delivery purposes. We stand by size, deformability degree and drug loading, as the most important vesicle features that determine the further transdermal drug absorption.

Highlights

• Lipid vesicles can provide a cost-effective enhancement of skin drug absorption.

• Lipid vesicles composition and production method mainly determine their features.

• Vesicles allow the permeability of > 500 Da molecules.

• Vesicle enhancement depends mainly on the size, flexibility and drug content.

• Long-term preservation of vesicles can be successfully achieved by freeze-drying.

The interest in this technology is increasing, as demonstrated by the exponential growth of publications on the topic. Although long-term preservation and scalability issues have limited the commercialization of lipid vesicle products, freeze-drying and modern escalation methods overcome these difficulties, thus predicting a higher use of these technologies in the market and clinical practice.

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Antonio José Guillot, Miquel Martínez-Navarrete, Teresa M. Garrigues, Ana Melero, Skin drug delivery using lipid vesicles: A starting guideline for their development, Journal of Controlled Release, Volume 355, 2023, Pages 624-654, ISSN 0168-3659, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jconrel.2023.02.006.