Abstract
Background: Progesterone (PG), a promising therapeutic for treating traumatic brain injury, has been difficult to formulate into a high-dose/low-volume form for emergency intravenous administration due to its hydrophobicity and crystallinity. Results: This work demonstrates the use of Flash NanoPrecipitation to produce 300-nm PG-loaded polymeric nanoparticles with approximately 24 wt% drug loading using only components that are classified by the US FDA as generally recognized as safe. Approximately 80% of the encapsulated PG is in dissolved, rather than crystalline form. For prolonged stability, the nanoparticles are freeze-dried with Pluronic F68 and can be reproducibly reconstituted by hand agitation for 1 min without particle aggregation to produce injectable formulations with approximately 30-mg/ml PG, which is more than ten-times higher than has been previously reported. Conclusion: This formulation can allow for administration of therapeutically viable concentrations of PG, which has been impossible with all previously reported nanoparticulate formulations because of low drug loadings and concentrations.
| Original language | American English |
|---|---|
| Pages (from-to) | 1269-1279 |
| Number of pages | 11 |
| Journal | Therapeutic Delivery |
| Volume | 3 |
| Issue number | 11 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Nov 2012 |
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Pharmaceutical Science