Nonionic surfactant vesicles as a novel drug delivery system for increasing the oral bioavailability of Ginsenoside Rb1

In the present study, a novel nonionic surfactant vesicles (NSVs) system consisting of cholesterol, Tween 80 and Span 80 was developed for the delivery of Ginsenoside Rb 1 with an improved oral bioavailability. The prepared vesicles were hollow and spherically shaped with acceptable diameter (264.68 ± 4.17 nm), zeta potential (−11.58 ± 0.87 mV) and encapsulation efficiency (69.034 ± 0.045%). XRD analysis provided affirmed the encapsulation of Rb 1 in the vesicles. The in vitro release profile of Rb 1 from the vesicles in the two different media (double distilled water, pH 7.0, phosphate buffer solution, pH 7.4) showed statistical insignificant difference when compared with the free Ginsenoside Rb 1 . Notably, the pharmacokinetic analysis of optimized Ginsenoside Rb 1 -NSVs exhibited a higher C max (9.55 ± 0.5 μg/mL versus 6.22 ± 0.53 μg/mL) with 1.82-fold increase in relative oral bioavailability. Collectively, these findings revealed that the developed vesicles could be a novel alternative in improving the oral bioavailability of Ginsenoside Rb 1 and extending its application in the clinical setting.