Lipid-Based Nanoparticles for Drug-Delivery Systems

The discovery of new drug molecules depends on a number of steps, which limits the development of feasible new drugs for the treatment of disease without any side effects. However, most drugs fail in the clinical stage even though they showed good biological activity in in vitro and in vivo studies. This is may be due to the lack of a physiological environment during the in vitro and in vivo studies. Hence, most research and development is focusing on alternative ways to develop drug molecules that are suitable for treatment without side effects through the formulation of suitable drug-delivery systems. There are a number of processes and techniques developed for drug delivery, and one such technique is lipid-based nanoparticles as carriers for drug delivery. The major advantages of lipids are high biocompatibility and biodegradability. In this chapter, we discuss lipid-based nanocarrier systems such as liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carriers, and self-emulsification drug-delivery systems. The focus of this chapter is a detailed discussion of the various lipid-based nanocarrier systems, formulations, and characterization techniques. We also briefly discuss the different routes of administration of lipid-based nanoparticles and their application in drug-delivery systems for various kinds of treatment.