European Journal of Biomedical and Pharmaceutical Sciences

FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF SUSTAINED RELEASE PELLETS OF BOSENTAN BY FLUIDIZED BED COATING PROCESS

G. Venkata Ramireddy* and K. V. Ramana Murthy

ABSTRACT

Multiparticulate drug delivery systems provide tremendous opportunities for designing new controlled and delayed release oral formulations. Multiparticulate dosage forms are gaining much favor over single-unit dosage forms in pharmaceutical applications. In the present investigation bosentan pellets were prepared for the sustained drug delivery for extended period of time. Bosentan is an antihypertensive drug having 50% of oral bioavailability. Bosentan sustained release pellets were prepared by using sugar pellets with EC as sustained release polymers, the pellet coating was performed by fluidized bed coating technique. The physicochemical characterization like SEM, DSC and in vitro dissolution studies were performed for all the formulations. It was found that among the various batches of formulations BEC-4 and BEC-5 were found to release the drug over an extended period of time, i.e. up to 18 hrs. As the concentration of the polymer increased the drug release from the pellet formulations was reduced. The sustained drug release profile has been maintained. So the present technique is successful in developing a sustained release pellet formulation for the bosentan.

Keywords: Bosentan, pellets, Sustained release, ethyl cellulose, Fluidized bed Coating.