Formulation, development and evaluation of ibuprofen loaded nanoemulsion prepared by nanoprecipitation technique: Use of factorial design approach as a tool of optimization methodology

The objective of this study was to optimize ibuprofen loaded nanoemulsion by using a factorial design approach. In the present study attempts have been made to formulate and evaluate nanoemulsion for topical delivery of ibuprofen. Solvent precipitation technique was used for development of ibuprofen nanoemulsion. Miglyol 840 was screened as the oil phase due to a good solubilisation capacity (0.197 ± 0.012 g/mL) for ibuprofen. On the basis of RHLB of an oil phase Labrasol and Triton X 100 were used as surfactant and cosurfactant, respectively. The study investigated the utility of 23 factorial design for optimization process of nanoemulsion batches. Present model demonstrated the significance of factors such as drug concentration (X1), anti-solvent volume (X2) and surfactant cosurfactant combination concentration (X3) on particle size (Y1) and encapsulation efficiency (Y2). Optimized nanoemulsion showed better flux value (Jss), skin permeation coefficient (Kp) as compared to plain ibuprofen gel. Drug deposition study revealed that optimized ibuprofen nanoemulsion showed deposition of 26.13 ± 3.47 μg cm-2 in comparison to the deposition of 16.50 ± 2.34 μg cm-2 shown by plain ibuprofen loaded gel. While the anti-inflammatory study has shown faster onset of action with the nanoemulsion which was confirmed by 75 ± 1.27 % inhibition of inflammation at the end of 1 h and 63.97 ± 1.71 % at the end of 24 h. The effect of drug was enhanced by prepared nanoemulsion formulation and hence confirms the utility of nanoemulsion system as a vehicle for better topical delivery of ibuprofen. © 2014 The Korean Society of Pharmaceutical Sciences and Technology.