Formulation of Lipid-Based Nanocarriers of Lacidipine for Improvement of Oral Delivery: Box-Behnken Design Optimization, In Vitro, Ex Vivo, and Preclinical Assessment

The present research work was aimed to develop and optimize the nanostructured lipid carrier (NLCs) of the antihypertensive drug lacidipine (LAC) for the improvement of oral bioavailability and antihypertensive activity. LAC-NLCs were successfully developed by the preemulsion probe sonication technique. The formulations were optimized by Box-Behnken design and assessed for particle size (PS), polydispersity index (PDI), entrapment efficiency (EE), drug loading (DL), drug release, ex vivo permeation, and in vivo study. The optimized LAC-NLCs showed nanometric PS (191.0 ± 5.89 nm), high EE (90% ± 3.69%) and DL (9.26% ± 1.89%), negative zeta potential (-28.9 ± 0.99 mV), and narrow size distribution (PDI of 0.074 ± 0.013) with spherical morphology. The drug release study revealed that a significantly (p < 0.05) higher LAC release (88.49% ± 3.01%) was achieved from the optimized LAC-NLCs compared to LAC-dispersion (34.27% ± 3.01%). Moreover, the optimized LAC-NLCs showed significantly (p < 0.05) higher intestinal permeation (692.04 ± 19.76 μg) than LAC-dispersion (23.83 ± 5.08 μg). After oral administration of a single dose of LAC, the optimized LAC-NLCs exhibited 3.45-fold higher relative oral bioavailability as well as a more prominent antihypertensive effect than LAC-dispersion. This might be due to the high penetration and absorption of the drug. Hence, NLCs might provide an efficient nano delivery for the management of hypertension and promising drug delivery systems for the bioavailability enhancement of LAC.