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Biopharmaceutical Approaches For Improved Drug Delivery Across Ocular Barriers, Ketan Hippalgaonkar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The eye is protected from the external environment by various physiological and anatomical barriers. These barriers through there protective actions drastically diminish the ocular bioavailability of drugs. The corneal epithelium acts as a major barrier towards the permeation of hydrophilic agents, whereas poor aqueous solubility presents a formulation challenge for lipophilic compounds. Additionally, P-glycoprotein (P-gp) expressed on the retinal pigmented epithelium (RPE P-gp) limits the penetration of substrates, in therapeutically relevant concentrations, into the back-of-the-eye.

In the present research, use of penetration enhancers (chitosan, benzalkonium chloride (BAK) and ethylenediaminetetraacetic acid (EDTA)) and formulation approaches (cyclodextrins and solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs)) …