A review. The soly. issues present serious challenges to the successful development and commercialization of new drugs in the pharmaceutical industry. Lipophilic and less water-sol. therapeutic agents cause decreased bioavailability, increased chance of food effect, incomplete release from the dosage form and higher inter-subject variability. Self Micro-emulsifying Drug Delivery System (SMEDDS) is a novel approach to improve water soly. and ultimate bioavailability of drugs. SMEDDS is isotropic (one phase system) mixt. of oil or modified oils, surfactants and co-surfactants, which form the fine oil-in-water microemulsion when introduced into aq. phase under condition of gentle agitation. The digestive motility of the stomach and intestine provide the agitation necessary for self-microemulsion in-vivo. Triglyceride is the one of the component of SMEDDS, which helps in the absorption of drugs from the GI tract. SMEDDS enhance the bioavailability enabling redn. in dose of the drug. SMEDDS is evaluated by various methods like visual assessment, droplet polarity and droplet size, size of emulsion droplet, dissoln. test, charge of oil droplets, viscosity detn., in-vitro diffusion study. With future development of this technol., SMEDDS will continue to enable novel applications in drug delivery and solve problems assocd. with the delivery of poorly sol. drugs. [on SciFinder(R)]