Revista de Bioanálise e Biomedicina

Phytosomes: Review on Drug Delivery Approaches for Herbal Hepatoprotective

Abstract

Himanshu Sehrawat* Sourabh Kosey and Junaid Tantray

The photo-phospholipid complexation technique has emerged as one of the most leading methods of improving bioavailability of phytopharmaceuticals having poor competency of solubilizing and crossing the biological membranes. Complexes between a pure phospholipid and a pure active substance are called phytosomes. Several plant actives in spite of having potent in vitro pharmacological activities have failed to demonstrate similar in vivo response. One of the newest and most popular lipid-based nano-carriers for delivering herbal-based drug is the nano-phytosome. Despite being created for medicinal uses, nano-phytosome technology has the potential to be used to food items to create unique functional meals. Compared to typical herbal extracts in dosage form, phytosomes exhibit superior absorption due to their water-soluble herbal extract and lipophilic outer layer, which results in better bioavailability and effects. Different methods have been adopted to formulate phospholipid complexes of plant extractives utilizing varying solvent systems, molar ratios of drug/phospholipids and different drying techniques. Some methods of formulating such drug-phospholipid complexes have been patented as well. However, the stability of phyto-phospholipid complexes is still a matter of concern which needs attention. But still a number of products exploiting this technique are under clinical trials and some of them are now in market. The current review highlights key finding of recent years with our own viewpoints which can give the new directions to this strategy as well as study also includes advancements in the technical aspects of phyto-phospholipid formulations which have been done in recent past with future challenges.