Journal of Pharmaceutics & Drug Delivery Research

Fabrication of a Novel Device Containing Famotidine for Gastro Retentive Delivery Using Carbohydrate Polymers

Poluri Koteswari, Sajja Brahmani, Puttagunta Srinivasababu, Durga Nithya Pinnamraju and Varanasi S N Murthy

Fabrication of a Novel Device Containing Famotidine for Gastro Retentive Delivery Using Carbohydrate Polymers

The drug delivery systems that inflate in the gastric region are more appropriate for the local treatment of proximal parts of gastro intestinal tract (stomach and/or duodenum) and also drugs that are degraded in the colon, drugs with narrow absorption window and so on. The existing devices are compressible to a size suitable for swallowing and expandable to a size which will prevent passage through the pylorus. However, they put on certain trivial problems namely, composed of at least one insoluble/non-erodable synthetic polymer and one cellulosic polymer; don’t explain the mechanism of disintegration or their exit from the stomach causing toxicity. Hence the present investigation was concentrated with an objective to develop a simple and novel device with carbohydrate polymers like gellan gum and guar gum containing famotidne a H2 receptor antagonist. A simple film casting technique using a silicon mould was employed to fabricate the device. Sodium bicarbonate was added as gas generating agent to maintain buoyancy and to maintain microbial stability methyl paraben was also incorporated into the formulation. The developed devices were evaluated for mechanical and physicochemical properties before and after inserting into empty gelatin capsule. The thickness, diameter and weight were in the range of 1.2 ± 0.3 and 2.2 ± 0.8 mm, 2.2 ± 0.2 and 2.6 ± 0.5 cm, and 0.31 ± 0.06 gm and 0.404 ± 0.06 gm respectively. The devices took 20 ± 0.5 to 25 ± 2 min for self un-folding and become buoyant and the cumulative percent of drug released was in the range of 60.2 ± 5.1 to 98 ± 3.8, zero order drug release kinetics, anomalous nonfickian diffusion were observed and no drug excipient interactions were found. In conclusion the fabricated device was given a new sight in the development of FDDS (floating drug delivery systems) with natural polymers, fewer excipients and processing steps and shorter period of time.