Lipid-based nanocarriers for ocular drug delivery: An updated review

Recent years have witnessed a boom in ocular nanomedicine research with a number of lipid-based nanocarriers such as liposomes, niosomes, cubosomes, nanoemulsions, solid lipid nanoparticles, nanostructured lipid carriers, etc., to improve the ocular bioavailability of a variety of drugs and biologics due to their high solubility, drug loading and target specificity for the improvement of ocular therapeutics. These lipid-based nanocarriers have been drew the attention of formulation experts as prospective ocular drug delivery tools with the advantages like protection of drugs and other therapeutics against enzymatic degradation caused by tear enzymes, site specific targeted delivery of drugs to enhance ocular bioavailability and minimize the inefficacious absorption, controlled release of drugs to minimize the dosing frequency and improved drug permeation via the cornea. The lipid-based nanocarrier systems for drug delivery can be divided into lipid-based nanoparticles and lipid-based nanovesicular systems. The current article provides an overview of different lipid based nanocarriers designed for ocular drug delivery.