Nanovesicles-enabled concurrent delivery of cyclosporine and Vitamin D for topical treatment of psoriasis

Psoriasis is a chronic autoimmune skin disease, which affects the quality of life of patients. Cyclosporine (Cys-A) & Vitamin D (Vit D₃) are crucial drugs used in the treatment of the disease. They are mainly administered <i>via</i> oral dosage forms for the treatment of psoriasis. However, their conventional dosage forms suffer from low oral bioavailability, along with systemic adverse effects. Developing the topical dosage forms of these drugs can be advantageous to overcome the problems associated with conventional therapy. Hence, ethosomes (ETH) were developed for the simultaneous administration of both the drugs. The particle size of the developed ethosomes was found to be 120.8 <b>±</b> 5.6 nm, zeta potential value was found to be -24.7 ± 1.5 and entrapment efficiency was found to be 74.8 ± 1.52% & 80 ± 1.8% respectively, for Cys-A and Vit D₃. <i>In vitro</i> drug release studies exhibited drug release of about 74% and 78% for Cys-A & Vit D_3, respectively. Skin permeation studies demonstrated significantly higher drug permeation of ETH gel for Cys-A & Vit-D₃ (71.6% and 72.2% respectively) than the conventional gel formulation (52.9% and 54.8% respectively). A cytotoxicity study conducted on the HaCaT cell line showed no cytotoxicity with ≥ 90% of cell viability. The therapeutic efficacy of the formulation tested on the <i>in-vivo</i> antipsoriatic rat model demonstrated comparable efficacy to that of the marketed formulation and the signs of inflammation were reverted within 14 days.