Melatonin Microneedle Patch Preparation

Microneedle is a small needle fraction less than 1 mm in length, which is able to penetrate through the stratum corneum, the main barrier for transdermal drug delivery, without touching the dermis, and therefore does not cause pain or skin damage. Melatonin has a wide range of applications for improving sleep, delaying aging, antioxidant damage, antitumor, and treating Parkinson's disease. In order to avoid the first-pass effect, melatonin microneedles have been prepared to enable transdermal administration of melatonin, which is expected to improve its bioavailability; at the same time, microneedles are suitable for elderly people who cannot take the drug orally. CD Formulation provides melatonin microneedle patch preparation, microneedle loading assay, in vitro release evaluation services, and also provides solutions for customer's products.

Fig. 1 Pictorial depiction of different types of MNs of topical and transdermal use. (Rai et al., 2022)

How to Prepare Melatonin Microneedle Patches

Preparation of melatonin microneedle patches

1. Prepare PVA solution and a mixture of sodium carboxymethylcellulose and dextran, respectively;
2. Mix the melatonin, PVA solution, sodium carboxymethylcellulose and dextran solution and pour them onto the PTFE mold with microporous array, vacuum the back side of the mold to completely fill the microporous solution, then lay a backing layer prepared by polymer solution on the front side of the mold, freeze-thaw the mold containing the solution and the backing layer together twice. The micro-needles and the backing layer are separated from the mold by two freeze-thaw cycles, and finally the micro-needles are dried to obtain the melatonin micro-needle patch.

Materials for microneedle preparation

Sodium carboxymethyl cellulose, dextran, hyaluronic acid, chitosan, polyethylene glycol, etc.

In addition to preparation services, we can also provide microneedle drug loading measurement and in vitro release testing, etc. If you are interested in other services for melatonin microneedle patches, please contact us as our services are constantly being updated.

Advantages of Melatonin Microneedle Patch Preparation

• The polymeric material PVA is widely used in pharmacy and has good skin compatibility. aqueous PVA solution can be solidified into a gel after freeze-thaw cycles, the more cycles, the higher the cross-linking of the gel.
• In order to separate the microneedle from the mold better, the backing layer is prepared with the same polymer solution as the needle tip, and polyvinyl alcohol is used as the backing film composition material to support the microneedle dot matrix, so that the backing layer and the microneedle tip are closely bonded, thus the backing film and the needle tip can be consistently detached from the mold when the film is uncovered, and there is no needle breakage problem during the process.
• The dried microneedles are hard and strong enough to pass through the skin stratum corneum. After contacting and absorbing body fluids, the microneedle material will swell without dissolving, thus forming a diffusion channel for the drug and achieving melatonin release.

What Matters Needs Attention

The mold material needs to be a hydrophobic polymer mold with a microporous array with a breathable and impermeable microporous structure. Having breathability allows the polymer solution to fill the micropores when vacuuming; secondly, the mold material should be hydrophobic to avoid the microneedles from sticking to the mold and damaging the needle shape when separating the microneedles and the mold.

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