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Review
. 2021 Nov 22;14(11):1201.
doi: 10.3390/ph14111201.

Cellulosic Polymers for Enhancing Drug Bioavailability in Ocular Drug Delivery Systems

Bharti Gupta  1 , Varsha Mishra  1 , Sankalp Gharat  1 , Munira Momin  1   2 , Abdelwahab Omri  3
Affiliations
Review

Cellulosic Polymers for Enhancing Drug Bioavailability in Ocular Drug Delivery Systems

Bharti Gupta et al. Pharmaceuticals (Basel). .

Abstract

One of the major impediments to drug development is low aqueous solubility and thus poor bioavailability, which leads to insufficient clinical utility. Around 70-80% of drugs in the discovery pipeline are suffering from poor aqueous solubility and poor bioavailability, which is a major challenge when one has to develop an ocular drug delivery system. The outer lipid layer, pre-corneal, dynamic, and static ocular barriers limit drug availability to the targeted ocular tissues. Biopharmaceutical Classification System (BCS) class II drugs with adequate permeability and limited or no aqueous solubility have been extensively studied for various polymer-based solubility enhancement approaches. The hydrophilic nature of cellulosic polymers and their tunable properties make them the polymers of choice in various solubility-enhancement techniques. This review focuses on various cellulose derivatives, specifically, their role, current status and novel modified cellulosic polymers for enhancing the bioavailability of BCS class II drugs in ocular drug delivery systems.

Keywords: bioavailability; carboxymethyl cellulose; ethylcellulose; hydroxyethyl cellulose; hydroxypropyl methylcellulose; methylcellulose; ocular drug delivery system; solubility; sustained release.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Anatomy of the eye.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Anatomy of the ocular barriers.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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