Vesicular carriers for skin drug delivery: the Pheroid™ technology

The skin remains an attractive area for drug delivery. The skin, however, often limits the ingress of drugs, because of its very low permeability. Much research, focusing on employing a variety of physical and chemical methods, aimed at reversibly altering skin permeability in favour of compounds, has been reported. Of the many chemical approaches that exist, one comprises the use of vesicular carriers for delivering drugs into and possibly through the skin. This review offers an overview of various vesicles that have been investigated during dermal and transdermal drug delivery research in recent years, with special emphasis on a relatively new carrier, namely the Pheroid™. The progress made to date by our research group with regards to the use of the Pheroid™ as transdermal delivery vector, is also discussed in detail.