Most of the newly developed drug candidates are lipophilic and poorly water-soluble. Enhancing the dissolution and bioavailability of these drugs is a major challenge for the pharmaceutical industry. Liquisolid technique, which is based on the conversion of the drug in liquid state into an apparently dry, non-adherent, free flowing and compressible powder, is a novel and advanced approach to tackle the issue. The objective of this article is to present an overview of liquisolid technique and summarize the progress of its applications in pharmaceutics. Low cost, simple processing and great potentials in industrial production are main advantages of this approach. In addition to the enhancement of dissolution rate of poorly water-soluble drugs, this technique is also a fairly new technique to effectively retard drug release. Furthermore, liquisolid technique has been investigated as a tool to minimize the effect of pH variation on drug release and as a promising alternative to conventional coating for the improvement of drug photostability in solid dosage forms. Overall, liquisolid technique is a newly developed and promising tool for enhancing drug dissolution and sustaining drug release, and its potential applications in pharmaceutics are still being broadened.
Keywords: Dissolution enhancement; Liquisolid technique; Photostability; Poorly water-soluble drugs; Sustained release; pH variation.
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