Design and Characterization of Controlled Release Tablets of Emtricitabine by Compression Coating Technology

A. Prameela Rani, Varanasi. S. N. Murthy*
University College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Acharya Nagarjuna University, Guntur, Andhra Pradesh, India

A B S T R A C T
Extending or controlling the release of highly water soluble drugs from matrix tablets is always a challenge. The research attempt was aimed to explore the compression coating technology for the development of controlled release (CR) tablets of highly water soluble drug i.e., emtricitabine. Emtricitabine controlled release tablets were developed to prolong drug release time and prepared by compression coating technique by employing ethyl cellulose, hydroxy ethyl cellulose and ethyl cellulose with lactose in different ratios as drug release-retarding (coating) polymers. Emtricitabine granules for core tablet and polymer granules for coating were prepared and evaluated for the flow properties like angle of repose, bulk density, tapped density, compressibility index and hausner’s ratio. All types of granules showed good flow properties. The compression-coated tablets were evaluated for the hardness, uniformity of weight, friability, tensile strength, swelling index, wetting time, drug content and in-vitro dissolution studies. All the formulations were in compliance with pharmacopoeial standards. Through FTIR & DSC studies, it was confirmed that there was no interaction between drug, polymer and other excipients. Among all the formulations ECT14, showed prolong release when compare to the other formulations. The drug release kinetics followed zero order. The diffusion exponent (n) values are found to be more than 0.9 (n>0.9) which indicated that the drug release was predominantly controlled by super case II transport system.
Keywords: Controlled Release, Tablets, Emtricitabine, Compression coating technique, Ethyl cellulose.