Currently, nanomicelles are used pharmaceutically for solubilizing
hydrophobic drugs, improving bioavailability, targeting anticancer drugs, and many
more applications are associated with the use of nanomicelles. By definition,
nanomicelles are colloidal dispersions containing a hydrophobic core and a hydrophilic
shell that self-assemble itself into the nanosize range of 10-100 nm. The major limiting
factor for formulating a clear aqueous solution of a drug is its hydrophobic nature.
Nanomicelles improve the solubilization of hydrophobic drugs by entrapping the drugs
within a mixed micellar hydrophobic core with hydrophilic chains protruding outwards,
forming a clear aqueous formulation. Pharmaceutically nanomicelles serve as
outstanding carriers as they can avert or moderate drug degradation by dropping
adverse side-effects, thereby augmenting drug permeation through biological barriers
with very minimum or no irritation at all, which ultimately enhance bioavailability. The
major factors that affect the micelle formation are the hydrophobic part size in the
amphiphilic molecule, amphiphiles concentration, temperature and solvent. The
assembling process starts only when a certain minimum concentration is crossed by the
amphiphilic molecules, called Critical Micelle Concentration (CMC). Therefore, in this
chapter, a critical history of nanomicelles is provided from its fundamental theory to
preclinical and clinical achievements.
Keywords: Drug release mechanism, Nanomicelles, Ocular drug delivery,
Peptide drug delivery, Pulmonary drug delivery, Theory, Vaccine adjuvant.
