NANOPARTICLE TECHNOLOGY: FORMULATING POORLY WATER-SOLUBLE COMPOUNDS: A REVIEW

One of the biggest challenges faced by pharmaceutical scientists is poor solubility and bioavailability of new chemical entities (NCEs). According to BCS classification; approximately 25% of all compounds are classified as highly soluble and permeable. Nearly 40% of the new chemical entities currently being discovered are lipophilic so poorly water soluble drugs. BCS Class II and Class IV have low solubility. Aqueous solubility of any therapeutically active substance is a key property as it governs dissolution, absorption and thus the in -vivo efficacy. A surprisingly large proportion of new drug candidates emerging from drug discovery programs are water insoluble, and therefore poorly bioavailable, leading to abandoned development efforts. These so-called ‘brickdust’ candidates can now be rescued by Nanonization. Formulating the poorly soluble compounds as pure drug nanoparticles is one of the newer drug-delivery strategies applied to this class of molecules. The present review deals in detail about the different techniques used for the improvement of the solubility and dissolution rate of poorly water soluble drugs with the use of nanoparticle as a drug delivery approach and characterization of nanoparticle.