In Vitro Permeation Studies on Clonazepam from Proniosomes Based Niosomes for Transdermal Delivery

Proniosmal gel of clonazepam (CNZ) for transdermal delivery to provide controlled drug release was prepared by phase coacervation method using non ionic surfactants, cholesterol and egg lecithin. The formulations were investigated for surface morphology by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), particle size, entrapment efficiency, in-vitro drug release and in-vitro drug permeation. SEM enabled visualization of proniosomes of clonazepam and the vesicle size was found to be in the range of 1492.32 - 9865.68 nm with entrapment efficiency as high as 72.9%. Amongst the ten formulations designed, F2 and F6 were selected as the optimized formulations and incorporation of egg lecithin increased the entrapment efficiency of the selected formulations to more than 90%. The fabricated matrix transdermal patch exhibited more than 70% drug release in 24 hours.