Application of hot-melt coating for sustained release pellets of fenoverine

Hot-melt coating (HMC) techniques are widely used to provide drug protection, to improve aesthetic value of products, to reduce acidity of vitamins, to provide lubrication and to modify drug release. Lipid coating can regulate the drug release from the pellets. In the present study, fenoverine (anti-spasmodic drug) was used as model drug. The application of cow ghee and mixture of cow ghee-caurnauba wax in various ratios were used as drug release regulators for fenoverine pellets. The kinetics of drug release from pellet formulations was investigated. Fenoverine pellets of 16:20 mesh size were prepared by extrusion-spheronization technique and coated with the molten coating materials at various ratios in a modified pan coater without spray system. The dissolution of coated pellet was decreased with the increases in quantity of caurnauba wax in coating composition. Formulation F4 was selected as optimized formulation based on difference factor (f1) and similarity factor (f2) values (6.65 and 64.66 respectively). Drug release from the sustained release pellets occurred by diffusion, which was reflect from Higuchi model. The ‘n’ value of Peppas equation for release of drug from coated pellets were lies between 0.5-1.0, hence the drug release mechanism can be concluded as non-Fickian diffusion. The results signify that drug release could be adjusted by varying the ratio of cow ghee to caurnauba wax.
Author(s): Suresh G. Sudkea and Dinesh M. Sakarkar

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