Microfluidic mediated emulsification for drug delivery applications

Abstract

Conventional drug delivery methods in life sciences and patient care often have excessive problems of homogeneity and batch-to-batch variability. Microfluidics technology has gained significant attraction due to the miniaturization of the fluid environment in pharmaceuticals and biomedicine, offering solutions to the problems associated with drug delivery. The diverse applications of microfluidic technology include emulsification, a process for producing stable suspensions of one immiscible liquid in another, which is particularly suitable for improving drug delivery systems. Miniaturization of emulsification in microfluidic devices offers several advantages, including better control of droplet size, improved reproducibility, and improved scalability. Microfluidic-mediated emulsification yields monodisperse droplets with a narrow size distribution, which play a key role in drug delivery by ensuring uniform drug dosage and release kinetics, thus minimizing the risk of over- or under-dosing. Moreover, microfluidic-mediated emulsification techniques such as flow-focusing and droplet-based microfluidics enable precise control over the geometry of the droplets, enabling tailored drug delivery systems. The inherent scalability of microfluidic systems makes them suitable for large-scale production of emulsions suitable for pharmaceutical applications, while controlled emulsification in microfluidic devices also facilitates the encapsulation of amphiphilic drugs into single-carrier systems. This versatility expands the range of drug compounds that can be effectively delivered and overcomes challenges associated with the solubility and stability of certain drugs. Therefore, emulsification in microfluidic devices offers a promising advancement in drug delivery applications. This review aims to provide an overview of microfluidic-mediated emulsification and its applications in drug delivery systems to investigate its efficiency and effectiveness in drug delivery systems and pave the way for new therapeutic strategies. Finally, this review highlights the existing patents and the evolving market landscape of microfluidic-based formulations and devices while also addressing the current challenges and limitations of microfluidic-based devices.