Methanolic extraction, formulation and evaluation of herbal transdermal patches of Azadirachta indica A. juss

At present, synthetic drugs form a major line of treatment in the management of many diseases and currently available as transdermal patches. Traditional medicine system is centuries old practice and again gaining importance. Hence, herbal products can be used to treat many diseases as transdermal patches. Neem leaves has antibacterial properties and can be used for controlling air borne bacterial contamination. Azadirachta Indica. A. Juss (neem) very useful traditional plant. The present study was carried out to extract, formulate and evaluate a transdermal patches containing Azadirachta indica A. Juss The total four Transdermal patches were prepared by solvent casting method and evaluated for physicochemical characteristics such as weight variation, thickness, drug content uniformity, folding endurance, In-vitro diffusion, ex-vivo permeation studies and anti-Bacterial screening test. The infrared spectroscopy showed that there was no incompatibility between drug and polymer. The In-vitro diffusion studies of Transdermal patches of Neem showed percentage of drug release from 65.2% to 92.06% at the end of 21hrs. The ex-vivo permeation study was carried out for optimized formulation (M2) using goat abdomen skin as barrier and showed percentage drug release 89.6% at the end of 21hrs. Release kinetics data showed that all the formulations followed zero order kinetics with non-Fickian diffusion mechanism. The anti-bacterial screening study showed good anti-bacterial activity against Bascillus subtilis and Pseudomonas aeruginosa and zone of Inhibition (ZOI) was compared against standard antibiotic drugs i.e. Penicillin and Streptomycin.