Engineering of drug nanoparticles by HGCP for pharmaceutical applications

This paper reviews our work on the fundamental principles of high gravity controlled precipitation (HGCP) technology, and its applications in the production of drug nanoparticles, which was carried out in a rotating packed bed (RPB). Several kinds of drug nanoparticles with narrow particle size distributions (PSDs) were successfully prepared via HGCP, including the 300-nm Cefuroxime Axetil (CFA) particles, 200-400-nm cephradine particles, 500-nm salbutamol sulfate (SS) particles (100 nm in width), and 850-nm beclomethasone dipropionate (BDP) particles, etc. Compared to drugs available in the current market, all the drug nanoparticles produced by HGCP exhibited advantages in both formulation and drug delivery, thus improving the bioavailability of drugs. HGCP is essentially a platform technology for the preparation of poorly water-soluble drug nanoparticles for oral and injection delivery, and of inhalable drugs for pulmonary delivery. Consequently, HGCP offers potential applications in the pharmaceutical industry due to its cost-effectiveness, efficient processing and the ease of scaling-up. (C) 2008 Chinese Society of Particuology and Institute of Process Engineering, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Published by Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.