A Review on Enteric Coating Technology

Vijay Singh Rathore¹*, Y.S. Tanwar¹, Gajendra Singh Rathore¹, Jishan Ali Ahmed^2 
1B.N. College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutics, Udaipur-313001, India.
²Jaipur College of Pharmacy, Department of Pharmaceutics, ISI-15, RIICO Sitapura Institutional Area, Jaipur (Rajasthan)-302011, India.

Abstract
Oral drug delivery remains the most preferred option for the administration of various drugs. As very few drugs are coming out of research and development and the existing drugs are suffering from the problem of resistance and side-effects as well, there is an ever-growing need to focus more on alternate methods of drug delivery. Recently, extended release and enteric-release technology has become a very useful tool in the medical practice as they overcome the problems of conventional oral therapy and offer numerous advantages as well. The delivery of drug to the intestinal region can be achieved by applying coating of enteric polymers on the solid dosage form. Colon-specific drug delivery is being evaluated as a promising option not only for colonic pathologies but for systemic absorption of drugs as well. Various semi-synthetic and synthetic polymers are being used for producing an enteric coated drug product to provide the desired site-specific effect. Enteric coating increases the stability of drugs in gastric fluids and dissolves in the intestinal pH to release the drug for absorption.
Keywords: Enteric coating, colon-specific delivery, systemic absorption, enteric coating polymers.