Frontier Lipid-Based Carrier Systems for Drug Targeting: A Laconic Review on Niosomes

Since, the first report on cosmetic applications of non-ionic surfactant vesicles by L’Oreal, numerous papers have been published reporting success of niosomes in drug delivery. Niosomes are considered as one of the most successful drug carrier system applying nanotechnology to potentiate the therapeutic efficacy and reduce toxicities of conventional therapies. Niosomes are biodegradable, nontoxic and nonionic surfactants based vesicular drug carriers. The recent advancements in the pharmaceutical research are focused on the development of new delivery systems based on micro or nano-sized carriers to modulate the drug delivery, targeting as well as to improve the drug stability. Niosome are effective drug carrier with the ability of encapsulating both lipophilic and hydrophilic drugs. This laconic review exhaustively focuses on the potential of niosomal drug delivery with special emphasis on their role in drug targeting, advantages and disadvantages, formulation approaches and applications of niosomes in the disease therapy.