FORMULATION DEVELOPMENT AND INVITRO CHARACTERIZATION OF FLOATING TABLETS OF PERINDOPRIL

Floating drug delivery system is one of the novel drug delivery system. Perindopril is an anti hypertensive with elimination half life of perindopril is 2.5-3hrs . It was sought to increase gastric retention of perindopril by development of sustained release gastroretentive drug delivery system leading to reduced fluctuation in the plasma concentration and improved bioavailabilty. The floating microspheres were prepared using biocompatable polymers like HPMCK4M,sodium CMC,carbopol 934 by ionotropic gelation technique.Microspheres having lower densities exhibited good buoyancy effect and hence these could be retained in the gastric environment for more than 12 hours. SEM analysis showed that the surface of microspheres was completely uneven with rich complex network. The dissolution studies showed that the drug release followed first order kinetics and Higuchi's diffusion with some non – Fickian diffusion mechanism. The drug release was more controlled from the microspheres prepared with carbopol than those prepared with HPMC. The data obtained in this study thus suggest that floating microspheres of perindopril are promising for sustained drug delivery which improves oral bioavailability and can reduce dosing frequency. Key words: Perindopril, HPMC K4M, Sodium CMC, Carbopol, SEM, first order kinetics and Higuchi's diffusion