Medicinal Chemistry

Fabrication and Characterization of Thiolated Chitosan Microneedle Patch of Azathioprine for Transdermal Drug Delivery

Abstract

Fazal Ur Rehman*, Riffat Latif, Muhammad Tahir and Yasmeen Rasheed

Micro needle patches are the novel dosage form in transdermal drug delivery systems with improved penetration to skin. In this study we fabricated micro needle patches containing azathioprine an immunosuppressant drug by using polymer thiolated chitosan that in turn was developed by adding thiol group to chitosan. These micro needle patches were further evaluated for their mechanical, physical and chemical parameters. The optimized micro needle patch having 225 needles with 665 μm length, 90 μm width showed good penetration i.e 84% and better percent elongation. In-vitro and ex-vivo penetration studies on rat skin using Franz diffusion cell showed sustained release of (85%) azathioprine in its comparative study with azathioprine ointment. HPLC analysis also showed 91.7% release of drug from optimized formulation of micro needle patch. Finally the recent progress proved that micro needle patches of thiolated chitosan loaded with azathioprine for transdermal drug delivery have the potential to show therapeutic outcomes with improved bioavailability and sustained release of drug over a longer period.