The preparation of colloidal particles of different morphologies, including spheres, of two drugs, loratadine and danazol, is described. In principle these particles were obtained by precipitation when nonsolvents (water or aqueous surfactant solutions) were added to ethanol solutions of the drug. In addition, procedures were developed that made it possible to use the drug particles thus obtained as cores to be then coated with either silica or aluminum (hydrous) oxide layers. The presence of these inorganic shells was confirmed by electron microscopy, energy dispersive spectroscopy, and electrophoresis. (C) 2003 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.