Abstract

PREPARATION AND EVALUATION OF IN VITRO CONTROLLED RELEASE OF THE WATER-SOLUBLE DRUG USING NATURAL POLYMERS

Merina Paul Das*, Y. Yasmine and P. Vennila Devi

ABSTRACT

Tablets are most common pharmaceutical oral dosage preparation by which therapeutically active substances can be delivered to the ill-affected body. A binding agent is very important for the formulation of tablets. Starch is most widely used binder because of its polymeric structure. The aim of present work was to extract starch from Cucurbita pepo (pumpkin) seed with and without seed coat to assess its binding property in tablets using amoxicillin as model drug and to study in vitro drug release profile at different pH. The tablets were prepared by wet granulation technique with different concentration of these natural polymers. The results obtained from both the polymers for all pre-compression and post compression parameters were found within satisfied range. The concentration of polymers affects the drug release. In vitro drug release from the tablets shows significantly improved drug dissolution. C. pepo seed with seed coat showed 88.42% at pH 7.4 and 94.94% at pH 1.2 which higher than the starch from without seed coat. But all the tablets with different concentration of starch showed controlled release of drug in the dissolution media. Hence these polymers can be used as potential drug binding agents.

Keywords: Cucurbita pepo (pumpkin), Seed with and without seed coat, Starch, Controlled release.