Abstract
PLGA nanospheres are known as valuable carriers to deliver active pharmaceutical substances. Depending on the drug formulations, their size and surface properties can be controlled and modified to increase the drug encapsulation ratio and to improve the drug stability, dispersibility and other functional properties. For practical use, it is necessary to compound the drug loaded nanospheres into a desirable form having the structure and characteristics suitable for drug administration. Particulate engineering plays a critical role on the commercialization of drug loaded PLGA nanospheres.
Our laboratory has established various particle design and processing technologies with drug loaded PLGA nanospheres for pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical delivery systems. For examples, insulin loaded PLGA nanospheres were optimized based on the required drug characteristics for pulmonary drug delivery systems1∼5). PLGA nanospheres were found capable of improving the subcutaneous permeability of drug, which could lead to many applications in transdermal drug delivery systems6,7), not only for skin care8∼12) but also for systemic treatments. Furthermore, by encapsulating fluorescent substances and test reagents, PLGA nanospheres were used for bio-kinetics modeling in the medical research. As to the development of commercial products, our laboratory has begun marketing not only first high performance skin care cosmetics, “NanoCrysphere”, with pro-vitamin C loaded PLGA nanospheres in 200511) but also new hair growth tonic as a functional cosmetic, “NanoImpact”, with several plant extract loaded PLGA nanospheres in 200611,12).
In this paper, we would focus on the PLGA nanospheres technologies for creating functional skin care cosmetics.
