Dynamic Release of Vitamin B₂ from Floating Barium Alginate Beads for Gastric Delivery

The present study is focused on the development of floating barium alginate beads, which after oral administration, are intended to prolong the gastric residence time and increase the drug bioavailability. Out of three different barium alginate bead samples prepared using NaHCO₃ as porogen, the beads prepared with 4 and 5 percent solutions of sodium alginate and with 1.5% content of porogen NaHCO₃ remained buoyant for more than 9 h. It took nearly 8–9 h for the beads to release all the entrapped model drug vitamin B₂ in the simulated gastric fluid (SGF, pH 1.2) at 37°C. In addition to the traditional dissolution test, the release study was also carried out by using a recently developed approach called ‘Dissolution Test with Refreshing Medium (DTRM)’ which reflects the gastric in vivo conditions more effectively. Finally, the release data was interpreted by using ‘first order’ kinetic model.

Keywords:

• porous beads
• vitamin B₂
• porogen
• gastric delivery

5 Acknowledgements

Authors are thankful to Dr. S.L. Dengre, Head of the Chemistry Department, for providing facilities. One of the authors (Seema Dubey) is also thankful to the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for financial assistance via SRF project 8/031/Renewal/2006‐EMR‐I.