Microneedles: A Novel Carrier for Transdermal Drug Delivery

Abstract

The microneedle (MN), a highly effective and flexible device, has attracted significant scientific and industrial interest in recent years due to its key characteristics, which include painless penetration, low cost, impressive therapeutic effectiveness, and relative safety. Drug delivery via the skin has several advantages over oral or parenteral methods, including avoiding hepatic first-pass metabolism, keeping a steady plasma concentration, safety, and compliance. Only a tiny number of highly efficient drugs with the right physicochemical properties, however, may passively diffuse and intercellular permeate through skin barriers and reach therapeutic concentration through this route, which is the biggest hurdle to transdermal delivery. Significant efforts have been made to create alternatives to help the drugs penetrate the skin more effectively. Microneedles are one of the microscale physical objects among them ways of improvement that significantly broaden the range of medications available for transdermal and intradermal delivery.