Recent Advances in Ocular Drug Delivery, with Special Emphasis on Lipid Based Nanocarriers

Eye is a vital sense organ of our body and any disorder can lead to serious medical implications that may put great financial burden on patient and their family. Effective drug delivery to the eye is a challenging proposition for the pharmaceutical scientist. Eye drops have been globally accepted as a formulation for anterior segment applications. On one hand it is widely used owing to its convenience but is also associated with some limitations in terms of desired pharmacological and pharmacokinetic profile, dosing frequency, systemic untoward effects, patient noncompliance, low drug bioavailability due to transient contact time, rapid washout by tearing and nasolacrimal drainage. The need to overcome these major issues related to ocular pharmacotherapy has been long recognized. Several novel nanocarriers including nanolipid based carrier systems have been widely explored and investigated for ophthalmic applications. These include solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), nanostructured lipid carriers (NLC), liposomes, in situ gels, niosomes, mucoadhesive systems and discomes. Since lipids have similar structure to human cell lipids, their biodegradable, non-toxic and biocompatible profile are particularly useful. Additionally, they also offer protection against drug degradation, impart controlled drug release characteristics and site specific delivery. This review explores the potential feasibility of lipid component in formulation of nanomedicine for ophthalmic delivery and reports the clinical findings in order to improve the ocular pharmacotherapy. Here, we also discussed for patents related to the topic.