Abstract

OCULAR DRUG DELIVERY VIA COLLOIDAL CARRIERS

Chhatwal Nitika*, Aggarwal Geeta and Kumar Hari S.L.

ABSTRACT

Ocular drug delivery has been a major challenge to pharmacologists and drug delivery scientists due to its unique anatomy and physiology. Static barriers, dynamic barriers, and efflux pumps in conjunction pose a significant challenge for delivery of a drug alone or in a dosage form, especially to the posterior segment. Controlled and sustained delivery of ophthalmic drugs continues to remain a major focus area in the field of pharmaceutical drug delivery with the emergence of new, more potent drugs and biological response modifiers that may also have very short biological half-lives. Parallelly, colloidal dosage forms such as dendrimers, nanoparticles, niosomes, liposomes, and microemulsions have been widely explored. Designing noninvasive sustained drug delivery systems and exploring the feasibility of topical application to deliver drugs to the posterior segment may drastically improve drug delivery in the years to come. Current developments in the field of ophthalmic drug delivery promise a significant improvement in overcoming the challenges posed by various anterior and posterior segment diseases.

Keywords: Nanoparticles; ophthalmic delivery, ocular bioavailability, colloidal drug delivery systems.