Volume 1

October-December

Design and development of oral sustained in situ gelling system of famotidine

S B Chandra Mohan, N Manjunatha, Kalpesh Patel, M K Samanta, Shyamala Bhaskaran

Abstract:
In situ gels are capable of releasing drug in a sustained manner affording relatively constant plasma profiles. The study evaluates the potential of oral sustained delivery of famotidine with gellan gum and sodium alginate as gelling agents. Calcium ions present in the formulation helps in formation of gel when administered as oral aqueous solutions. Aqueous solutions of gellan gum and sodium alginate form gels on warming to body temperature in the presence of cations. The Famotidine a H2 receptor antagonist, with short half life of 3 h is chosen as candidature. Different Solutions (sols) were prepared varying the concentration from 0.25 %w/v to 6.0 % w/v and 0.5 % w/v to 7.0 % w/v in case of gellan gum and sodium alginate respectively. The sols were evaluated for rheological properties using brookfield viscometer. In vitro release rate studies were carried out using gastric buffer (pH 1.2) for 2 h followed by acidic buffer (pH 4) for 2h and than the phosphate buffer (pH 6.8) for 2 h respectively. Diffusion studies were carried out in franz diffusion cell using cellophane membrane and water uptake studies was also done. 1.0 % w/v sols and suspensions of the polymers showed pseudoplastic flow with a satisfactory release rate following diffusion mechanism. The diffusion co-efficient was found to be 2.5488 x 10-7 Cm2/Sec and 3.9648 x 10-7 Cm2/Sec for gellan gum and sodium alginate formulations. The sols of gellan gum or sodium alginate results in the formation of in situ gel of famotidine for better treatment of ulcer.

Keywords: Famotidine, In Situ Gel, Gellan Gum, Sodium Alginate.