Comprehensive Screening of Drug Encapsulation and Co-Encapsulation into Niosomes Produced Using a Microfluidic Device

Abstract

Microfluidics is a very facile and fast method of particulate production. Besides, it enables the manufacturing of size tuned particulate systems. Niosomes due to structural similarities have importance as alternative drug delivery systems to liposomes. Niosomes can be encapsulated or co-encapsulated with hydrophilic and lipophilic drugs. The research presented here includes the optimization of method parameters for niosome production as well as evaluation of the efficiency of microfluidics to encapsulate and co-encapsulate the drugs. For this purpose, metformin (MET) and garcinol (GC) were the model drugs. Two different non-ionic surfactants (NIS), namely Tween-20 and Span-60 with significant difference in hydrophilic-lipophilic balance (HLB) value, were chosen to analyze their efficiency to form niosomes and encapsulate one or more drugs.