Supercritical CO₂-Assisted Spray Drying of Strawberry-Like Gold-Coated Magnetite Nanocomposites in Chitosan Powders for Inhalation.

Lung cancer is one of the leading causes of death worldwide. Therefore, it is of extreme importance to develop new systems that can deliver anticancer drugs into the site of action when initiating a treatment. Recently, the use of nanotechnology and particle engineering has enabled the development of new drug delivery platforms for pulmonary delivery. In this work, POXylated strawberry-like gold-coated magnetite nanocomposites and ibuprofen (IBP) were encapsulated into a chitosan matrix using Supercritical Assisted Spray Drying (SASD). The dry powder formulations showed adequate morphology and aerodynamic performances (fine particle fraction 48%-55% and aerodynamic diameter of 2.6-2.8 µm) for deep lung deposition through the pulmonary route. Moreover, the release kinetics of IBP was also investigated showing a faster release of the drug at pH 6.8, the pH of lung cancer. POXylated strawberry-like gold-coated magnetite nanocomposites proved to have suitable sizes for cellular internalization and their fluorescent capabilities enable their future use in in vitro cell based assays. As a proof-of-concept, the reported results show that these nano-in-micro formulations could be potential drug vehicles for pulmonary administration.