Solid Dispersion as an Eminent Strategic Approach in Solubility Enhancement of Poorly Soluble Drugs

The solubility behavior of drugs remains one of the most challenging aspects in the formulation development. Although there was a great interest in solid dispersion systems during the past four decades to increase solubility by improving dissolution rate and bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs; there commercial use has been very limited, primarily because of manufacturing difficulties and various stability problems. It can be carried out by reducing drug particle size to the absolute minimum, and hence improving drug wet-ability, bioavailability may be significantly improved. Solid dispersion of drugs was generally produced by melt or solvent evaporation methods. Recently, surfactants have been included to stabilize the formulations, thus avoiding drug recrystallization and potentiating their solubility. New manufacturing processes to obtain solid dispersions have also been developed to reduce the drawbacks of the initial process. In this review, it is intended to discuss the eminent approach to improve the solubility or the dissolution rate and recent revival has been discussed.