Microfluidics-assisted engineering of polymeric microcapsules with high encapsulation efficiency for protein drug delivery.

In this study, microfluidic technology was employed to develop protein formulations. The microcapsules were produced with a biphasic flow to create water-oil-water (W/O/W) double emulsion droplets with ultrathin shells. Optimized microcapsule formulations containing 1% (w/w) bovine serum albumin (BSA) in the inner phase were prepared with poly(vinyl alcohol), polycaprolactone and polyethylene glycol. All the particles were found to be intact and with a particle size of 23-47 μm. Furthermore, the particles were monodisperse, non-porous and stable up to 4 weeks. The encapsulation efficiency of BSA in the microcapsules was 84%. The microcapsules released 30% of their content within 168 h. This study demonstrates that microfluidics is a powerful technique for engineering formulations for therapeutic proteins.