Highly loaded nanoparticulate formulation of progesterone for emergency traumatic brain injury treatment

Background: Progesterone (PG), a promising therapeutic for treating traumatic brain injury, has been difficult to formulate into a high-dose/low-volume form for emergency intravenous administration due to its hydrophobicity and crystallinity. Results: This work demonstrates the use of Flash NanoPrecipitation to produce 300-nm PG-loaded polymeric nanoparticles with approximately 24 wt% drug loading using only components that are classified by the US FDA as generally recognized as safe. Approximately 80% of the encapsulated PG is in dissolved, rather than crystalline form. For prolonged stability, the nanoparticles are freeze–dried with Pluronic F68 and can be reproducibly reconstituted by hand agitation for 1 min without particle aggregation to produce injectable formulations with approximately 30-mg/ml PG, which is more than ten-times higher than has been previously reported. Conclusion: This formulation can allow for administration of therapeutically viable concentrations of PG, which has been impossible with all previously reported nanoparticulate formulations because of low drug loadings and concentrations.