Application of spray-drying and electrospraying/electospinning for poorly water-soluble drugs: a particle engineering approach.

Solid dispersions have been widely studied as an attractive formulation strategy for the increasingly prevalent poorly water-soluble drug compounds, including herbal medicines, often leading to improvements in drug dissolution rate and bioavailability. However, several challenges are encountered with solid dispersions, for instance regarding their physical stability, and the full potential of these formulations has yet to be reached. Solid dispersions have mainly been used to produce immediate release systems using water-soluble polymers but an extended release system may provide equal or better performance due to enhancement in the pharmacokinetics and low variability in plasma concentration. Progress in processing technologies and particle engineering provides new opportunities to prepare particle-based solid dispersions with control of physical characteristics and tailored drug release kinetics. Spray-drying and electrospraying are both technologies that allow production and continuous manufacturing of particle-based amorphous solid dispersions in a single step process and electrospinning further allows the production of fiber based systems. This review presents the use of spray drying and electrospraying/electrospinning as techniques for preparing particle-based solid dispersions, describes the particle formation processes via numerical and experimental models and discusses particle engineering using these techniques. Examples are given on the applications of these techniques for preparing solid dispersions and the challenges associated with the techniques such as stability, preparation of final dosage form and scale-up are also discussed.