This monograph  covers  a novel technology  to deliver drugs and cosmetics through the skin in a minimally invasive manner. Microneedles – a bed of miniaturized needles is one of the most studied topics in delivering actives through the skin barrier.  This book enables readers to understand the delivery of ingredients through the skin, describes a novel and simple method to fabricate microneedles containing a range of small and large molecular weight compounds, studies their physical properties as well as the delivery through the skin layers.

Readers will discover this book to be extremely beneficial to help them understand the state of the field of transdermal drug delivery, with extensive coverage with experimental data on basics of microneedle fabrication technology using photolithography, encapsulation of drugs within the polymeric matrix of microneedles and studying their release patterns in vitro and in vivo.

The work presented here was the subject of PhD thesis of Jaspreet Kochhar, who now works for Procter & Gamble Singapore. Lifeng Kang was his mentor during his Ph.D. tenure and is now at University of Sydney. Justin Tan & Yee Chin Kwang are students who worked together with them.

Academic researchers, pharmaceutical and cosmeceutical industry as well as students of skin science will find this account very useful in their pursuits. As microneedles grow and develop into a commercial reality with more actives being delivered and significant clinical research being put in, this account will hold well in providing basic principles and knowledge together with rigorous experimental data.