Inclusion of the poorly water-soluble drug simvastatin in mesocellular foam nanoparticles: Drug loading and release properties

The purpose of this study was to develop spherical mesocellular foam (MCF) loaded with a poorly water-soluble drug, intended to be orally administered, able to improve the dissolution rate and enhance the drug loading capacity. Spherical MCF with a continuous 3-D pore system was synthesized using Pluronic 123 triblock polymer (P123) as a surfactant coupled with cetyltrimethyl ammonium bromide (CTAB) as a co-surfactant. A model drug, simvastatin (SV), was loaded onto spherical MCF via a procedure involving a combination of adsorption equilibrium and solvent evaporation. The drug release rate and the drug loading efficiency of spherical MCF were compared with those of fibrous SBA-15. Investigations using nitrogen adsorption, scanning electron microscopy (SEM), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and HPLC demonstrated the successful incorporation of SV into the MCF host. It was found that spherical MCF has a high drug loading efficiency up to 37.5%, and higher than that of fibrous SBA-15 with a pore diameter of 6.5 nm. It is worth noting that fast release rate of SV was obtained from spherical MCF compared with SBA-15 and pure crystalline SV using enzyme-free simulated intestinal fluid (SIF, pH 6.8).