A Review on Solubility Enhancement of Poorly Soluble Drugs by Using Hydrotrophic Agents

Solubility enhancement of poorly water-soluble drugs remain a significant challenge in pharmaceutical formulation development. Drug solubility is a quite common issue and affects the bioavailability of a drug in the body. Various methods can accommodate to improve solubility of poorly soluble drugs. Hydrotropy is one of the unique technique which can be used to enhance the solubility of poorly water-soluble drugs with many folds by using hydrotropes like sodium citrate, urea, sodium benzoate, etc. Hydrotropes typically contain both a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic component which help to form micelle like structure. Hydrotropic solubilization has emerged as a valuable technique in pharmaceutical formulations, offering a promising solution to enhance the solubility of poorly soluble drugs. This method leverages the ability of hydrotropic agents to disrupt intermolecular interactions between drug molecules, thereby increasing their aqueous solubility. This technique has several advantages like doesn’t require chemical modification of hydrophobic drugs, addition of emulsifying agent, use of minimum organic solvent. This review, mainly focus on hydrotropy, mechanism of hydrotropy and its applications in pharmaceutical formulation.