Nanocrystal Approaches for Poorly Soluble Drugs and their Role in Development of Marketed Formulation

Abstract

This review paper gives focus on the nanocrystal approaches and their uses in pharmaceutical applications. Also, various preparation methods of the nanocrystal are briefly described in this presented review paper. The paper also describes several factors that are involved in the production of stable drug nanocrystals and provides suggestions for overcoming instability-related issues like aggregation and Ostwald ripening. Finally, the specific opportunities and challenges that are applicable to nanocrystal technology are summarized in this paper. In this paper, we summarize and discuss the special features of drug nanocrystals that include the enhancement of dissolution velocity, adhesiveness to the surface, and saturation solubility. Nowadays, pharmaceutical industries are using different approaches to prepare the nanocrystal, like bottom-up approach (precipitation), the top-down approach (wet milling, high-pressure homogenization), and some other combinational approaches. Drug nanocrystals can be administered through different routes. Besides this, the various fabrication methods and characterization methods may be used for the development and scale-up production of drug nanocrystals. In this review article, the relevance of drug nanocrystals are presented and illustrated according to their research done by different researchers and finally concluded that marketed formulation related to nanocrystal are gradually in progression. However, some related and developed formulations are under clinical trial. Poor solubility of the drug compounds is a major problem in the pharmaceutical field; therefore, the reduction of particle size may be one of the simplest and efficient processes for enhancing the solubility of such compounds. Drug nanocrystals are the crystals available with some drugs and having a particle size range of 100 to 1000 nm, covered by stabilization.