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Int J Pharm 2022 Feb 29;614:121437. Epub 2021 Dec 29.

Department of Pharmaceutics, UCL School of Pharmacy, 29-39 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AX, UK. Electronic address:

A nail patch is an attractive option for the topical treatment of onychomycosis, although no product is commercially available. We previously identified optimal nail patch formulations for two anti-onychomycotic drugs, based on their properties, as well as those of the other patch components. In this paper, our aim was to further investigate the potential of the patch formulations as topical nail medicines, in particular, whether the drug-in-adhesive patches release drug which then permeates into and through the nail plate and show anti-fungal efficacy, and whether and to what extent they remain adhered to the human nail plate in vivo when tested over 2 week durations. Read More

Gels 2021 Nov 18;7(4). Epub 2021 Nov 18.

Department of Pharmaceutics, School of Pharmaceutical Education and Research, Jamia Hamdard, New Delhi 110062, India.

Onychomycosis is a prominent fungal infection that causes discoloration, thickening, and mutilation leading to the separation of the nail from the nail bed. Treatment modalities for onychomycosis may include oral, topical, or combination therapy with antifungals and at times may require chemical or surgical intervention. The burden of side effects of antifungals is enormous, and therefore using molecular docking-based drug selection in context with the target keratin protein would ensure better disease management. Read More

Eur J Pharm Biopharm 2016 May 23;102:32-40. Epub 2016 Feb 23.

Department of Pharmaceutics, UCL School of Pharmacy, 29-39 Brunswick Square, London WC1N 1AX, UK. Electronic address:

We hypothesised that Hansen Solubility Parameters (HSPs) can be used to predict drug-nail affinities. Our aims were to: (i) determine the HSPs (δD, δP, δH) of the nail plate, the hoof membrane (a model for the nail plate), and of the drugs terbinafine HCl, amorolfine HCl, ciclopirox olamine and efinaconazole, by measuring their swelling/solubility in organic liquids, (ii) predict nail-drug interactions by comparing drug and nail HSPs, and (iii) evaluate the accuracy of these predictions using literature reports of experimentally-determined affinities of these drugs for keratin, the main constituent of the nail plate and hoof. Many solvents caused no change in the mass of nail plates, a few solvents deswelled the nail, while others swelled the nail to varying extents. Read More

Int J Pharm 2015 Aug 14;492(1-2):177-90. Epub 2015 Jul 14.

UCL School of Pharmacy, 29-39 Brunswick Square, London, WC1N 1AX, UK. Electronic address:

Nail diseases are common, cause significant distress and treatments are far from successful. Our aim was to investigate the potential of UV-curable gels - currently used as cosmetics - as topical drug carriers for their treatment. These formulations have a long residence on the nail, which is expected to increase patient compliance and the success of topical therapy. Read More

Antimicrob Agents Chemother 1984 Jul;26(1):5-9

The in vitro activity of R 51,211 (itraconazole, accepted generic name; Janssen Pharmaceutica, Beerse, Belgium), a new orally active triazole, was compared with those of two existing orally active azoles, ketoconazole and BAY n 7133, and a topical agent, Ro 14-4767/002. An agar dilution procedure (Kimmig agar) was performed with 148 isolates of pathogenic fungi. Incubation was at 30 degrees C from 48 h to 7 days. Read More