Pharmacosomes: An approach to improve biopharmaceutical properties of drugs basic considerations in development

Abstract

Vesicular drug delivery systems including niososmes, liposomes, pharmacosomes, transferosomes, electrosomes, ethosomes, etc have been widely accepted for controlled delivery of the drug. Amongst, all these drug delivery systems pharmacosomes are gaining more attention of the researchers due to several benefits such as high entrapment efficiency, improved biopharmaceutical properties, and pharmacokinetic performance, no leakage or loss of drug, stability, etc. Pharmacosomes are amphiphilic phospholipid complexes of drugs having active hydrogen that bind to phospholipids and self-assembled into vesicles in an aqueous medium. Both hydrophilic and lipophilic drugs have been formulated into pharmacosomes that caused improved solubility and permeability of drugs. Pharmacosomes are prepared by using various techniques such as hand shaking method, ether injection, solvent evaporation method, supercritical fluid approach, etc and are characterized for prodrug confirmation, surface morphology, crystal state measurement, in vitro drug release, and stability, etc. Despite wide research and highly encouraging results in the preclinical studies, translation of these nanomedicines from laboratory to market has been very limited. The main aim of this review is to describe comprehensively the potential of pharmacosomes as a vesicular drug delivery system focusing mainly on their conventional and advanced methods of preparation, different characterization techniques, and their applications in the delivery of different types of drugs with improved biopharmaceutical properties and pharmacokinetic performance.