Nanovesicles for transdermal delivery of felodipine: Development, characterization, and pharmacokinetics

AIM: The research traces development of nanovesicles to attain enhanced transdermal delivery of felodipine and also investigates parameters for optimization of variable membrane compositions containing soya- and egg lecithin and edge activator. MATERIALS AND METHODS: Rotary evaporation sonication method was employed to obtain tranfersomal formulation that was characterized for vesicle shape and size, polydispersity index (PDI), zeta potential, entrapment and loading efficiency, deformability index and in vitro skin permeation. RESULTS: Spherical nanovesicles of 75.71 ± 5.4 nm with PDI 0.228 and zeta potential of -49.8 were adjudged as the best formulation (MF8). MF8 displayed maximum entrapment and loading efficiency with a high deformability index of 119.68. In vitro permeation across rat skin by MF8 reported 256% enhancement in permeation (flux = 23.72 ± 0.64) when compared with transdermal control formulation and followed zero order kinetics (Case-II). Pharmacokinetic studies revealed that transdermal administration, in contrast to oral delivery provided relatively constant, sustained blood concentration with minimal plasma fluctuation, rapid and prolonged peak time. The relative bioavailability of felodipine was found 358.42% versus oral administration that was well supported by the outcomes of confocal laser scanning microscopic studies that suggested rapid permeation of drugs to across dermal layers. CONCLUSION: The results conclude that composition variation and method of preparation elicited significant effect on the vesicle characteristic and proved the transcendency of felodipine loaded transfersomes.