Artemisinin（ART） is a widely used active drug for malaria, including severe and cerebral malaria. However, its therapeutic efficacy is affected by its lower bioavailability. In the present study, nanostructured lipid carriers（NLCs） were proposed as carrier of ART to improve pharmacokinetic properties of the drug. ART-NLC was prepared by high-pressure homogenization based on orthogonal design. The particle size, zeta potential, encapsulation efficiency（EE） and percentage of drug loading（DL） of ART-NLC were（53.06±2.11） nm,（–28.7±3.59） m V, 73.9%±0.5% and 11.23%±0.37%, respectively. ART-NLC showed the sustained release characteristics and scarcely the hemolysis effect on human red blood cells. The pharmacokinetics of ART-NLC for rats after tail intravenous injection（i.v） or intraperitoneal injection（i.p） were investigated by liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectroscopy（LC-MS/MS）. And ART solution was designed as control preparation. For rats of i.v groups, the AUC0–∞（（707.45±145.65） ng·h/m L） of ART-NLC were significantly bigger than that of ART（（368.98±139.58） ng·h/m L）. The MRT（（3.38±0.46） h） of ART-NLC was longer than that of ART（（1.39±0.61） h）. And similar results were observed for rats of i.p groups. The AUC0–∞（（1233.06±235.57） ng·h/m L） and MRT（（4.97±0.69） h） of ART-NLC were both bigger than those of ART, which were（871.17±234.03） ng·h/m L） and（1.75±0.31） h）, respectively. Compared with ART, ART-NLC showed a significant increase in AUC0–∞（P〈0.05） and MRT（P〈0.001） for both i.p and tail i.v administrations.
