Improvement of oral bioavailability of lovastatin by using nanostructured lipid carriers

Nanostructured lipid carriers (NLCs) have been one of the systems of choice for improving the oral bioavailability of drugs with poor water solubility. In the present study, lovastatin (LVT)-loaded NLCs (LVT-NLCs) were successfully prepared by hot high-pressure homogenization method with high entrapment efficiency, drug loading, and satisfactory particle size distribution. The particles had almost spherical and uniform shapes and were well dispersed with a particle size of <50 nm (23.5±1.6 nm) and a low polydispersity index (0.17±0.05 mV). The result of stability showed that the LVT-NLCs dispersion maintained excellent stability without exhibiting any aggregation, precipitation, or phase separation at 4°C for 6 months of storage. The LVT release data from all developed solid lipid nanoparticles (SLNs) and NLCs were best fitted to a Ritger–Peppas kinetic model (0.9832 and 0.9783 for NLCs and SLNs, respectively). This indicated that the release of LVT from the SLNs and NLCs was due to a combination of drug diffusion and erosion from the lipid matrix. The pharmacokinetic and pharmacodynamic results show that LVT-NLCs were better compared to free drug, which could be attributed to an increase in bioavailability.