Dimethylsiloxane polymers for the effective transdermal delivery of Minoxidil in hair loss treatment.

Purpose: Hair loss affects significant social and psychological well-being issues of the person. Thus, various drugs, ingredients, and technologies are being developed to overcome it. Minoxidil (MXD) is a representative hair loss treatment drug because it suppresses the production of dihydrotestosterone and induces vasodilation. However, since MXD has various side effects when used orally, it is more desirable to use it topically. In this work, we disclosed a new polymeric formulation (MXD@CP) based on citric acid (CA) dimethylsiloxane polymer (CP) for the effective transdermal delivery of MXD.

Methods: The polymer that induced ring-opening polymerization based on CA was named CA-siloxane polymer (CP). After CP synthesis, MXD was loaded onto CP to form MXD@CP. The formed MXD@CP was confirmed to have efficacy as a transdermal delivery system through various material property analyses and biotoxicity and therapeutic efficacy analyses.

Results: In these results, CP stably loaded MXD up to 5%, a concentration used in clinical practice, and showed higher hair growth efficacy and hair follicle formation efficacy compared to MXD@PBS.

Conclusion: In the animal study, MXD@CP showed a superior hair growth effect which suggests its potential as a next-generation hair loss treatment agent.

Supplementary information: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1007/s13534-025-00460-0.