Co-delivery of moxifloxacin and prednisolone loaded nanostructured lipid carrier for ocular infections

The fixed-dose combination (FDC) strategy involves the combination of a minimum of two active pharmaceutical compounds within a singular unit. Moxifloxacin (MOX) and prednisolone (PRE) are commonly used separately as bactericidal and anti-inflammatory for ocular diseases. In this work, we aim to develop a nanostructured lipid carrier (NLC) formulation of Moxifloxacin (MOX) and prednisolone (PRE) as a combination (MOX-PRE-NLCs) to improve the patient's adherence to the treatment by decreasing the dose frequency, prolonging the therapeutic effect, and preventing the polypharmacy. The MOX and PRE release studies in formulation MOX-PRE-NLCs showed an extended-release of 91.7 ± 1.1 and 63.1 ± 2.3 % over 24 h, respectively. The flux and transcorneal permeability results of MOX and PRE in MOX-PRE-NLCs formulation were (3.66 ± 0.02 μg/min/cm2, 1.49 ± 0.06 μg/min/cm2), and (1.12 ± 0.06 ′ 10-5 cm/s, 2.06 ± 0.09 ′ 10-5 cm/s), respectively. The results showed that formulation MOX-PRE-NLCs significantly improved the corneal flux and permeability of MOX and PRE by 2.8-fold and 3.2-fold compared to the control formulations. The optimized NLCs formulation showed no significant difference (p > 0.05) in PZ, PDI, ZP, DC, EE, and formulation pH at temperatures of 4 °C, 25 °C, and 40 °C over the 90 days of the stability study. Hence, the MOX-PRE-NLCs formulation is a promising delivery system for treating ocular diseases.