Development of nanocrystal-loaded electrospun nanofibres for topical drug delivery

Amphotericin B (AmB) is highly active against Leishmania, but its poor aqueous solubility hinders topical delivery. Here we develop a scalable platform in which AmB nanocrystals (NCs) are embedded in electrospun poly(vinyl alcohol) nanofibre films (AmB-NCs-in-NFs) for local treatment of CL.

AmB-NCs (DLS size ≈ 120 nm; PDI ~0.25) were produced by wet media milling (WMM) and showed increased saturation solubility versus coarse drug (≈ 148 vs 65 µg/mL in PBS–SDS 0.1% w/w, 37 °C). Uniform PVA NFs (diameter ~200 nm) were fabricated using a five-needle setup, yielding flexible films with a drug loading of ~122 µg/cm². The fibrous matrix moderated the initial burst and delayed NCs dissolution relative to NCs alone.