Self-Emulsifying Systems for Oral Bioavailability Enhancement

Hydrophobic drug entities are the major challenges for pharmaceutical scientists to deliver through oral route of administration due to limited drug solubility and bioavailability particularly emerged from combinatorial chemistry and computer aided drug design. Presently, self-emulsifying systems have been employed as the most common approach for delivery of numerous poor aqueous drugs. This unique strategy exploits many lipids, surfactants, co-surfactants and permeation enhancers to form an ideal isotropic mixture in water or gastric fluid by gentle agitation. The chapter attempts to explore components of SEDDS in designing of drug delivery system to accommodate significant amount of poorly soluble drugs, limitations of the system and their rectification, types of SEDDS, evaluation of SEDDS and a short review of research in last decade involved to improve oral bioavailability of drugs. The aim of this chapter is a throughout understanding of lipid based dosage form designing and application in self-emulsifying drug delivery system from enhanced oral bioavailability point of view for drugs possessing water solubility problem. Moreover, the present article would also provide a brief account of the patent instances filed/approved in this domain for providing an updated account of the concept.