Background:
The low solubility of an active pharmaceutical ingredient particularly biopharmaceutics
classification system (BCS) Class II drugs leads to lower dissolution profile which in result cause reduction in overall
bioavailability of drugs. Numerous approaches like nanotechnology, solid dispersion technique, micronization techniques
etc were aimed by scientists in the past to resolve this issue, but still not enough to get the desired outcomes.
Objective:
Key focus of this review is study of advantages and disadvantages of cocrystallization, nanotechnology and
solid dispersions drug delivery techniques and benefits of using cocrystallization techniques over above-mentioned
techniques.
Methods:
Various parameters including pharmaceutical, pharmacological and toxicological effects related to these
mentioned drug delivery systems have been compared. There advantages and disadvantages have been elaborated.
Result:
For drug delivery purpose, cocrystallization process has numerous advantages over nanotechnology and solid
dispersions drug delivery techniques discussed in the text. Cocrystallization is newer technique that can modify the
physicochemical and pharmaceutical properties of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) are having issues like low
solubility, low stability or sensitivity toward environmental hazards like temperature, moisture or photostability issues.
During cocrystallization, drug and coformer interact with each other non-covalently in a fixed stoichiometric ratio. The
availability of large amount of coformers make this technique to be favourable for the researchers in designing cocrystals
of newer and older API’s.
Conclusion:
Although, solid dispersions and nanotechnology techniques are being utilised to a larger extent but still there
are some drawbacks of these techniques like stability, toxicological factors and protection from environmental factors
needs to be considered, while cocrystallization process drastically modifies the various pharmaceutical parameters without
altering the pharmacological properties of API’s. Here in this review we performed a comparative analysis between
nanotechnology, solid dispersion and cocrystallization techniques along with importance of cocrystallization in
modification of drug profile and various applications of it in pharmaceutical and allied industry.
NIOSOMES AS AN APPROACH TO IMPROVE THE SOLUBILITY AND BIOAVAILABILITY OF BCS CLASS II DRUGS
