Motivated by the methods range, several research groups, as well as regulatory authorities, continued to

develop new protocols able to minimize the procedure complexity, and at the same time, increase its
reproducibility. A particularly relevant optimization strategy of the tape stripping technique regards the
“two-time” approach, developed by Professor Richard H. Guy and Professor Annete Bunge. The main
changes of this new procedure are the following: (i) solely one uptake and one clearance time are
analysed; (ii) the authors developed strict cleaning procedures which assure that the formulation excess
is properly removed prior tape striping; (iii) the removal of nearly all stratum corneum during the
experiment (and therefore most, if not all of the drug); and finally, (iv) the method does not discard the
first tape strips (Benson and Watkinson, 2012; N’Dri-Stempfer et al., 2008). Due to the simplicity of the
method, the procedure is less sensitive to interlaboratory differences.

Moreover, less subjects are required since each volunteer is able to provide more replicate
measurements and thus enhancing the statistical power of the analysis. An interesting work by Cordery
and collaborators, compared the results of the tape stripping method (using the previously described
methodology), with in vitro permeation studies to assess the bioavaibility of three marked diclofenac
topical formulations with different strengths (1%, 2% and 3%) and different dosage forms (solution and
gels).The obtained tape stripping results were able to correlate the higher performance of one
formulation (a 2% diclofenac solution), which had a known permeation enhancer (DMSO), absent in the
remaining two formulations. Both methods – in vitro permeation and tape stripping – revealed similar
results, reinforcing the potential of these techniques to generate complementary information, useful
while assessing bioavaibility of topical drugs.