Nail

With foregoing successful years in topical and transder- mal delivery, the Center for Dermal Research is now expanding its focus towards another challenging eld of delivery: nail (transungual) drug delivery. Transungal local delivery is desirable when treating nail diseases due to localized effects with minimum systemic side effects. However, the effectiveness of topical therapies is limited by low drug permeability through the highly keratinized compact nail plate.

There are different approaches to nail delivery which in- clude chemical means of increasing penetration through nails, physical means and electrochemical. Approximate- ly, one half of all nail conditions are the result of fun- gus, making onychomycosis one of the most common nail disorders. Onychomycosis affects approximately 35 million Americans and currently 85% of these patients are untreated since currently prescribed oral anti-fungal medicines cause serious side effects such as liver dam- age. Therefore, there is signi cant need for effective local drug delivery through nails for treatment of on- ychomycosis and other nail disorders such as nail pso- riasis, yellow nail syndrome, paronychia, pitting of nails and hyperkeratosis. The Center for Dermal Research is well equipped for formulation design, development and transungual permeation studies and has access to facilities for microscopic examination (e.g. confocal mi- croscopy and spectroscopic imaging of the nail plate). We are now focusing on novel approaches for enhanced nail delivery for ef cient treatment of nail disorders and evaluating their perungual drug absorption following topical application.