Status of novel drug delivery technology for phytotherapeutics

Herbal medicines have been widely used all over the world since ancient times and have been recognized by physicians and patients for their better therapeutic value as they have fewer adverse effects as compared with modern medicines. However, phytotherapeutics needs a scientific approach to deliver the components in a sustained manner to increase patient compliance and avoid repeated administration. This can be achieved by designing novel drug delivery systems for herbal constituents. Novel drug delivery systems not only reduce the repeated administration to overcome non-compliance, but also help to increase the therapeutic value by reducing toxicity and increasing the bioavailability, and so on. Recently, pharmaceutical scientists have shifted their focus to designing a drug delivery system for herbal medicines using a scientific approach. For a long time herbal medicines were not considered for development as novel formulations owing to lack of scientific justification and processing difficulties, such as standardization, extraction and identification of individual drug components in complex polyherbal systems. However, modern phytopharmaceutical research solves the scientific needs for herbal medicines as in modern medicine, which gives way for developing novel formulations such as nanoparticles, microemulsions, matrix systems, solid dispersions, liposomes, solid lipid nanoparticles, and so on. This article summarizes various drug delivery technologies for herbal actives, which are gaining more attention for better therapeutic response.