Development of Polylactic Acid and Bovine Serum Albumin-layered-coated Chitosan Microneedles Using Novel Bees Wax Mould.

OBJECTIVES

This work illustrates a novel method of fabrication of polymeric microneedle (MN) construct using bees wax as mould and development of coated polymeric MNs for drug delivery.

MATERIALS AND METHODS

A novel method of MN fabrication using bees wax as mould was established. The porous chitosan MN arrays were fabricated and coated with polylactic acid (PLA). The optimized MN arrays were coated with bovine serum albumin (BSA). The MNs were subjected to physiochemical and tensile strength characterization, followed by drug release study. The skin penetration and irritation study were performed in Wistar Albino rats.

RESULTS

The constructed MN arrays contain MNs with 0.9 mm length, 600 μm width at the base, 30-60 μm diameter at the tip, and 1.5 mm distance between 2 needles. These MNs patch was having good mechanical strength (0.72 N/needle) and tensile strength 15.23 Mpa. The MN array patch had 6.26% swelling index and 98.5% drug release was observed on the 50 hr. Good penetration and no skin irritation was observed for optimized MN batch.

CONCLUSION

Polymeric MN arrays were successfully developed using bees wax mould and were successfully coated with PLA to deliver the BSA through skin epidermis layer.