18^th Annual Pharma Middle East Congress

Atopic dermatitis (AD) is a chronically relapsing eczematous skin disease characterised by frequent episodes of rashes, severe flares, and inflammation. Till date, there is no absolute therapy for treatment of AD; however, topical corticosteroids (TCs) are the majorly prescribed class of drugs for the management of AD. However due to numerous local and systemic adverse effects associated with the use of TCs, topical calcineurin inhibitors (TCIs) have alternatively been well prescribed agents. Though, the topical route is most preferable; however, a limited penetration of therapeutics across the stratum corneum (SC) is one of the major challenges to topical formulations. Owing to excellent biomedical achievements of nanomedicines in the last few decades, nano-delivery systems have gained remarkable recognition for targeted delivery of therapeutic payload, reduced off-target effects, and improved biopharmaceutical profiles of drugs. Therefore, we aimed to fabricate polymeric nanoparticles (NPs) to deliver tacrolimus (TCS) to deeper layers of the skin in order to alleviate its systemic toxicity and improved therapeutic efficacy for treatment of AD. To further optimize the targeting efficiency, TCS-loaded NPs were coated with hyaluronic acid (HA). HA plays multifaceted role in regulating the various biological processes and maintaining homeostasis into the body. Plenteous researches have evidenced the biomedical implications of HA in the skin repair, wound healing, tissue regeneration, anti-inflammatory, and immunomodulation. Following the various physicochemical optimizations, the prepared HA-TCS-CS-NPs were tested for in vitro drug release kinetics, drug permeation across the stratum corneum, percentage of drug retained in the epidermis and dermis, and anti-AD efficacy. Results revealed that HA-TCS-CS-NPs exhibit sustained release profile, promising drug permeation ability, improved skin retention, and pronounced anti-AD efficacy. Conclusively, we anticipated that HA-based modification of TCS-CS-NPs could be a promising therapeutic approach for rationalized management of AD, particularly in children as well as in adults having steroid phobia.