FORMULATION DEVELOPMENT OF MOUTH DISSOLVING TABLETS OF A POORLY WATER SOLUBLE DRUG USING SUBLIMATION TECHNIQUE

The purpose of this research was to develop mouth dissolving tablets of etoricoxib. Materials containing etoricoxib, camphor, low substituted-hydroxypropyl cellulose (L-HPC) and lactose were compressed by direct compression technique. Camphor was sublimed from the tablets by exposure to vacuum. The porous tablets were evaluated for percentage friability, wetting time and disintegration time. Sublimation of camphor from tablets resulted in superior tablets. The systematic formulation approach helped in understanding the effect of formulation processing variables. The best results for the batch D3 in terms of crushing strength; friability and disintegration were obtained, when sublimation was carried out of the tablets containing camphor as a sublimating agent at 5% and L-HPC as disintegrant at the 12% concentration. The drug release data showed that the entire drug was released within 60 min. The best batch prepared using camphor sublimation technique possessed crushing strength (kg/cm2) of 3.5, friability (%) of 0.26, wetting time of 21 sec and disintegration time of 24 sec, respectively.