Engineering of microcomplex of artemether and lumefantrine for effective drug treatment in malaria

The objective of the present work was to engineer and characterize stable citric acid cross-linked microcomplex of the inclusion complexes of artemether with β-cyclodextrin and Kollidon VA 64^® with lumefantrine to release the drugs in controlled manner for effective combinational drug treatment in malaria. The microcomplex had a hydrodynamic diameter of 1047 ± 147 nm with surface charge of -19.7 ± 0.5 mV. The microcomplex showed high encapsulation efficiencies 85.6 ± 1.78% for artemether and 91.16 ± 2.21% for lumefantrine due to the lipophilic nature of drugs. In-vitro and in-vivo drug release studies showed the controlled release of artemether and lumefantrine for a period of 24 h.