Verapamil Hydrochloride Systems Design for Pulsincap Drug Delivery: Development and Evaluation Studies

Abstract

Aim of the present work was to formulate and evaluate pulsatile drug delivery system to achieve time release of Verapamil HCl, based on pulsincap approach for the treatment of anti hypertensive drug. As fat production takes place in night time is more than day time. Pulsatile delivery system is capable of delivering drug when and where it required most. Time-delayed tablets, designed to release drug after a predictable lag time. The basic design consists of an insoluble hard gelatin capsule body filled with physical mixture of Verapamil HCl with HPMC and Guar gum, lactose as channeling agent and sealed with a Sodium alginate and xanthan gum plug. The Verapamil HCl pulsincaps were prepared by physical mixture method with lactose by varying drug to polymer ratio and evaluated for the micromeretic property, percentage yield, drug content, IR and in vitro release study. A hydrogel polymer Sodium alginate and Xanthan gum was used as plugs to maintain a suitable lag period.  The in vitro release study were carried out using pH 1.2 buffer for a period of 2 h then 7.4 pH phosphate buffer for a period of 10 h. The cumulative % release for HPMC formulations were found to be in the range of 82.87% to 90.28% and for Guar gum were found to be75.28 to 98.08% at the end of 12 h. From the obtained result formulation GS3 showing 94.5% drug release at 12 h with 3h lag time was selected as an optimized formulation for designing pulsatile device. The programmable pulsatile release has been achieved from prepared formulation over a 12 h period, consistent with the demands of Pulsincap drug delivery.

KEY WORDS: Pulsatile drug delivery; Verapamil HCl; Xanthan gum; Guar gum; In vitro study.