Abstract
Aim: The present work involves the development of Concavalin A-conjugated nanostructured lipidic carriers (NLCs) of olmesartan medoxomil for lectin receptor targeting. Materials & methods: Excipient selection was performed by drug solubility in solid and liquid lipids. Factor screening was carried out by evaluating the impact of formulation and process variables on the critical quality attributes. Surface modification of NLCs was carried out using Concavalin A and extensively characterized. Results & conclusion: NLCs exhibited the particle size of 273.6 nm, zeta-potential of -30.2 nm, encapsulation efficiency of 73.3% and sustained drug release profile. Nearly 4.2-fold improvement in cell uptake, four- to eightfold increase in C-max and AUC, and 37% reduction in blood pressure was observed from NLCs over the pure drug.