Niosomal drug delivery system: The magic bullet.

ABSTRACT

The concept of drug targeting or site specific drug delivery was introduced first time by Paul Elrich in 1909, when he reported ‘magic bullet’ to deliver a drug to the desired site of action without affecting the non target organs or tissues (Juliano, 1980) by associating the drug with a pharmacologically “inactive carrier” capable of conveying the drug selectively towards its target cells. The methods of preparation of niosomes such as hand shaking, ether injection and sonication (developed on the basis of liposome production technique) have been reviewed by Khandare et al., 1994. The hand shaking method form vesicles with greater diameter [0.35 – 13􀀀m] as compared to those prepared by ether injection method [50-1000nm]. The film formation method was used for the preparation of the niosomes due to simplicity, reproducibility and high drug entrapment efficiency.