A new water-based topical carrier with polar skin-lipids

A new water-based topical formulation is presented that aims at providing good penetration properties for both lipophilic and hydrophilic drugs with as small a disturbance of the skin barrier function as possible. The formulation contains dispersed lipids in a ratio resembling that of human skin. The capacity to deliver is addressed in this first study while the mild effect on skin will be presented later. Three variations of the lipid formulation were investigated by use of pigskin in vitro diffusion cell. The hydrophilic 5(6)-carboxyfluorescein (CF) and the lipophilic acridine orange 10-nonyl bromide (AO) were used as model drug substances. The results showed that the delivery properties of the new formulation exceeded that of the references (vaseline and xanthan gum gel). The effect was largest for lipophilic AO where all lipid matrix formulations were superior in amount detected in the skin. The results for the hydrophilic CF were also promising. Especially efficient was the lipid formulation containing the non-ionic adjuvants tetra ethylene glycol monododecyl ether and polyoxyethylene 23 dodecyl ether. The additional in vivo study suggests that the used in vitro model has qualitative bearing on relevant in vivo situations.