Many medicinal herbs and pharmaceutical drugs are therapeutic at one dose and toxic at another. Interactions between herbs and drugs may increase or decrease the pharmacological or toxicological effects of either component. Synergistic therapeutic effects may complicate the dosing of long-term medications eg, herbs traditionally used to decrease glucose concentrations in diabetes1 could theoret...

In the era of nanoparticulate controlled and site specific drug delivery systems, use of solid lipids to produce first generation lipid nanoparticles, solid lipid nanoparticles (SLN), became a revolutionary approach in the early nineties. The present review is designed to provide an insight into how SLN are finding a niche as promising nanovectors and forms a sound basis to troubleshoot the exi...

The aim of this study was to develop and validate a simple, sensitive, precise and cost-effective one-level agar diffusion (5+1) bioassay for estimation of potency and bioactivity of Levofloxacin in pharmaceutical preparation which has not yet been reported in any pharmacopoeia. Among 16 microbial strains, Bacillus pumilus ATCC-14884 was selected as the most significant strain against Levofloxa...

Transdermal administration of drugs has advantages over conventional oral administration or administration using injection equipment. The route of administration reduces the opportunity for drug evacuation before systemic circulation, and enables long-lasting drug administration at a modest body concentration. In addition, the skin is an attractive route for vaccination, because there are many ...

Hydrogels are crosslinked polymers with the ability to swell in an aqueous medium. Crosslinking in hydrogels occurs by chemical or physical means depending on the polymer properties and experimental conditions. Owing to a large variety in chemical structure and crosslinking methods, various hydrogels have been prepared for various applications in pharmaceutical and biomedical fields. This chapt...

Nanotechnology is providing solutions several pharmaceutical drug delivery issues. With the emergence of nanotechnology, researchers become more interested in studying the unique properties of nanoscale materials. Nanoparticles are attractive tool in pharmaceutical and biomedical fields. These particulate systems have been used as a physical approach to alter and improve the pharmacokinetic and...

Sheng-Mai-San is a multi-component traditional Chinese herbal preparation. Due to the fact granulated additives, such as starch, carboxymethyl cellulose, lactose and raw herbal powder may alter the content of the bioactive markers in the herbal products, a developed ultra-high performance liquid chromatography tandem mass spectrometry (UHPLC-MS/MS) method was used to measure the herbal biomarke...

In recent years, self assembled materials have received increasing attention in pharmaceutical science as they promise incredible potential for therapeutic and diagnostics applications. Owing to the low aqueous solubility of various drugs, a solubilizing delivery system is often required for reaching sufficient drug bioavailability and/or to facilitate clinical or even preclinical research and ...

Vegetable oils present important pharmacological properties, which gained ground in the pharmaceutical field. Its encapsulation in nanoemulsions is considered a promising strategy to facilitate the applicability of these natural compounds and to potentiate the actions. These formulations offer several advantages for topical and systemic delivery of cosmetic and pharmaceutical agents including c...

For several years, near-infrared spectroscopy (NIRS) has become an analytical technique of great interest for the pharmaceutical industry, particularly for the non-destructive analysis of dosage forms. The goal of this study is to show the capacity of this new technique to assay the active ingredient in low-dosage tablets. NIR spectroscopy is a rapid, non-destructive technique and does not need...