Liposomal Drug Delivery System and Its Clinically Available Products

This chapter provides an overview of a liposomal drug carrier system, including its properties, classification, stability aspects, and method of preparation. It discusses the classification of liposomes on the basis of lamellarity. Unilamellar vesicle liposomes are spherical vesicles, composed by a single lipid bilayer of an amphiphilic lipid or mixture of those lipids, containing aqueous volume inside the chamber. A number of liposome-based products are on the market and many more are in the pipeline. The field of liposomal drug delivery system is rapidly expanding and its potentials have already been demonstrated by the many products on the market. Liposomes are classified either by the method of preparation or by the number of bilayers formed in the vesicle, or by size. Phosphatidylethanolamine head group is similar to phosphatidylcholines and directly attached hydrogen to the nitrogen of ethanolamine allows hydrogen-bonding interactions of neighboring molecules in the membrane.