A review on various plant-derived nanoemulgels and their applications

Nanoemulgel is an emergent and promising drug delivery system used nowadays in the pharmaceutical industry. As a novel transdermal drug delivery tool, the applications of nanoemulgel have increasingly been used due to their unique characteristic properties and benefits over other oral and topical drug deliveries to avoid poor drug bioavailability and pharmacokinetic variations. These nanoemulgels are principally oil-in-water nanoemulsions gelled with a certain gelling agent in them. Plant extracts provide remarkable therapeutic options to manage different disease conditions due to their various pharmacological activities such as antioxidant, anti-inflammatory, anti-cancer, antibacterial, etc. However, the poor solubility and low bioavailability of lipophilic phytochemicals in plant extracts are two major issues in developing plant-derived formulations. In the past years, pharmaceutical research has focused more on nano-scale delivery systems to overcome the above problems by improving the delivery of herbal extracts and they have also reported nanoemulgel as a good vehicle for lipophilic and poorly soluble drugs. Therefore, the objective of this review is to discuss recent studies and applications of plant-derived nanoemulgels.