Good IDEA-033

I am a great fan of delivering drugs through the skin. As we age and transdermal technology expands, we may tape ourselves together with patches containing hormones (for women and for men), antihypertensives, antidepressants, neurostimulants (Ritalin), and now this, slather-on pain relief:

IDEA-033 is a formulation containing ketoprofen in an ultradeformable vesicle aka Transfersome. Ketoprofen, a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug or NSAID (same class of drugs as Advil and Aleve) is loaded into these ultradeformable carrier particles and smeared on painful, arthritic knees.

Germany's Matthias Rother explains the idea behind IDEAs: "Once the Transfersomes are on the skin, water starts to evaporate and deprive carriers of their suspending medium. Carriers reaching their solubility limit are attracted by the higher water content in the skin, resulting in spontaneous migration of IDEA-033 through the skin barrier.

Now in the skin, the little Transfersomes migrate into the next structure down which is the unhappy knee joint. Once there, the ketoprofen goes to work on the inflammation, delivering pain relief equivalent to Celebrex.* Best of all, there's no associated stomach irritation as would be found with an oral NSAID.
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Ann Rheum Dis. 2007;66:1178-1183.