The Rise of Polymeric Microneedles: Recent Developments, Advances, Challenges, and Applications with Regard to Transdermal Drug Delivery

The current scenario of the quest for microneedles (MNs) with biodegradability and biocompatibility properties is a potential research area of interest. Microneedles are considered to be robust, can penetrate the skin’s deep-seated layers, and are easy to manufacture, and their applications from the clinical perspective are still ongoing with standard escalation. This review paper focuses on some of the pivotal variants of polymeric microneedles which are specifically dissolvable and swell-based MNs. It further explores the drug dissolution kinetics and insertion behavior mechanisms with an emphasis on the need for mathematical modeling of MNs. This review further evaluates the multifarious fabrication methods, with an update on the advances in the fabrication of polymeric MNs, the choice of materials used for the fabrication, the challenges in polymeric MN fabrication, and the prospects of polymeric MNs with applications pertinent to healthcare, by exclusively focusing on the procurable literature over the last decade.