Permeation Enhancers for Transdermal Drug Delivery: Strategies and Advancements Focusing Macromolecules

Abstract

The various transdermal drug delivery method, allows medications to cross the biological barriers and enter the bloodstream to elicit desired pharmacological response. The relevant article focuses on the numerous biological and other macromolecule-based permeation enhancers including carbohydrates, protein-peptides and lipids used in transdermal drug delivery. Though the focus of the study is on role of macromolecule, as well as their mechanisms and modes of action for efficient transdermal drug delivery, it also concentrates on the recent developments in various permeation enhancement techniques. Transdermal administration of weakly permeable medications with shorter biological half-lives typically makes use of the permeation augmentation techniques and agents, which should not have any explicit toxicological implications and incompatibility within the formulations. In this review, limelight has been given to the promising permeation enhancers of current scenario which consist of various macromolecules.