Abstract

A REVIEW ON LIQUI -MASS PELLETS

Shriya Vilas Lakhadive* and Dr. A. M. Mahale

ABSTRACT

The Liqui-Mass technology (also known as Liqui-Pellet technology) has shown promising results in terms of enhancing the drug release rate of water insoluble drugs in a simplistic approach. there is no current study on sustained-release formulation using the Liqui-Mass technology. The empirical method as introduced by Spireas and Bolton (1999) was applied strictly to calculate the amounts of coating and carrier materials required to prepare nimesulide liquid mass pellets. In this study, an attempt was made to produce a sustained-release Liqui-Tablet for the first time using a matrix-based approach. Among them, the technique of liquisolid compacts is a promising technique towards such a novel aim. Several liquimass pellets formulations are prepared by using PEG-400 as a non-volatile liquid vehicle, microcrystalline cellulose, PEG-400, were used as carrier materials and nm-sized Aerosil300 swas used as coating materials. Quality control tests, i.e. uniformity of pellets weight, uniformity of drug content, tablet hardness, friability test and dissolution tests were performed to evaluate each batch of prepared tablets. Pellets provide specific advantages of smoother plasma concentration profile and gradual absorption than tablet. The concentrations were optimized using 32 full factorial design to achieve the aim of sustaining the drug release for 12 hours. The prepared pellets were studied for different flow properties and drug release. Liqui-pellet stems from combining liquisolid concept with pelletization technology. It is fundamentally different from liquisolid technology in that it does not fit under the definition of liquisolid system; hence, it is called liqui-pellet instead of liquisolid pellet. Liquisolid formulation is described to be under liquisolid system, which refers to powdered form of liquid medication formulated by transforming liquid lipophilic drugs, or drug suspensions or solutions of waterinsoluble drugs in an appropriate non-volatile liquid vehicle into dry looking nonadherent, free-flowing, and readily compressible powder admixtures by incorporating specific carriers and coating materials.[4] In this study, the liquipellet cannot be described as a liquisolid system because it is not necessarily in powder form and the admixture is not necessarily free-flowing, but rather a cohesive wet mass. The formulation only becomes free-flowing after becoming a pellet.

Keywords: Liquisolid pellet, Liquid-pellet, Dissolution enhancement, Extrusion-spheronisation, Liquid vehicle, Liqui mass pellets.