The concept of liposomal delivery of drug payloads is not new. For decades, pharmaceutical manufacturers have harnessed this ingenious approach to encapsulating active pharmaceutical ingredients in a vesicle comprised of phospholipid bilayers to improve bioavailability.
Bioavailability is a key stumbling block when it comes to drug design and delivery. Certain potentially beneficial substances suffer from extremely poor bioavailability. The great majority of these substances tend to be eliminated by the body before entering the bloodstream. For many substances, the issue is the highly acidic environment encountered in the stomach. One solution to this bioavailability problem is to encapsulate active pharmaceutical ingredients in a phospholipid bilayer sphere or liposome.
What Is a Liposome?
A liposome is an artificially created vehicle for the delivery of a given payload to target sites within the body. It is essentially a protective bubble that allows the drug to weather the journey through the digestive system, so it can be absorbed into the bloodstream for rapid transport to distant targets within the body. In some instances, liposomes also help avoid detection and neutralization by the immune system. For example, chemotherapeutic drugs encased in liposomes can reach tumors more stealthily.
Cannabidiol (CBD) is a cannabis-based antioxidant that is seeing amazing therapeutic potential.
It is apparently completely safe to ingest and is non-psychoactive, making it suitable for all sorts of patients, from arthritic dogs to epileptic children and pain-riddled adults. CBD is not toxic, but it, too, benefits from liposomal encapsulation, as liposomes enhance the accuracy of dosing and delivery.
Liposomal CBD is pure CBD encapsulated in a lipid bilayer for enhanced CBD delivery to target tissues. It’s a way of ensuring that virtually all of a given dose of the cannabis ingredient gets to the tissues where it can trigger desirable effects, such as pain relief or correction of aberrant electrical signaling, as in the brains of epileptic patients. Liposomal delivery of cannabinoids has been shown to enhance bioavailability by as much as 50-75 percent.
Liposomal CBD
Anyone who has been paying attention cannot have failed to notice that CBD is selling like hotcakes across the country. Virtually everyone, from soccer moms to their grandmothers, appears to be either buying or selling some version of this natural cannabis-derived substance. Most often these are crude extracts derived from hemp, which is rich in CBD and extremely low in THC, the psychoactive compound in cannabis.
Although sometimes taken internally, CBD for topical applications is also highly popular. Liposomal CBD is believed to enhance the delivery of this bioactive compound by helping it penetrate the outer layers of the skin.
Unfortunately, some widely reported independent analyses have shown that concentrations of CBD often fall far short of their advertised amounts. In some instances, commercial products have been shown to contain little or no active ingredients at all. This almost certainly reflects a manufacturing issue rather than a deliberate attempt to defraud the public.
The Reputation of the Industry Is At Stake
Without appropriate homogenization, mom-and-pop shops are relying on simple overhead stirrers, or perhaps even blenders, in the manufacture of CBD products. This kitchen-based technology is unsuitable for thorough mixing and uniform dispersion of active ingredients in a viscous medium such as an edible oil. Unfortunately, this failure to use appropriate mixing equipment threatens to ruin the reputations of more conscientious manufacturers who take pains to ensure the potency of their products and the accuracy of their labeling.
Microfluidics leads the industry in high pressure homogenizers that are more than equal to the demands of CBD processing. Microfluidizer® processors, using unique Microfluidizer® technology, are perfectly suited to manufacturing not only CBD-infused emulsions but CBD liposomes, too. Microfluidizer® processors are ideal for the creation of CBD liposomes for several reasons.
Our products allow for continuous processing and offer guaranteed scalability. This ensures seamless scale-up from small investigatory runs to full production. Our products also offer optimal temperature control and the highest shear rates possible. The latter ensures that particle sizes can be optimized for uniformity and enhanced bioavailability. Particle size reduction also facilitates effective liposomal encapsulation.
Choose Microfluidics for High Pressure Homogenizers
There’s a modern gold rush taking place, and CBD is the proverbial gold. Consumers are snapping it up as fast as manufacturers can produce it. Unfortunately, quality control is virtually nonexistent.
Unscrupulous or simply unwitting manufacturers who fail to use appropriate homogenization equipment have flooded the market with extremely poor-quality products. This threatens to poison the well for everyone. Liposomal CBD offers one solution. It’s the best way to ensure that concentrations are accurate and precise, and to enhance bioavailability at the same time. Liposomal CBD enhances skin penetration and ensures that CBD gets where it needs to go for maximum effectiveness.
Microfluidics is the global leader in high-pressure homogenizers, suitable for the generation of stable liposomes for enhanced drug delivery. For more information, contact us online or fill out our online Request-a-Quote form.
