FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF FLOATING TABLETS OF FLURBIPROFEN USING SOME NOVEL NATURAL AND SYNTHETIC POLYMERS

Floating drug delivery offers several applications for drugs having poor bioavailability because of the narrow absorption window in the upper part of the gastrointestinal tract. It retains the dosage form at the site of absorption and thus enhances the bioavailability. Flurbiprofen is a newer derivative NSAID, having short half-life of 2-4 hr, which required multiple daily doses to maintain the effective drug concentration. The long oral use of FP conventional dosage forms pronounced the drug gastro-intestinal adverse effects highly. Thus, Flurbiprofen was selected as a model drug for NSAIDs which is good candidate to be developed in sustained- release formulation. Aim of present work to develop sustained released tablets of
flurbiprofen using some novel synthetic and natural polymers. The % drug content of all the formulated tablets were found within the limit. % drug content value of Flurbiprofen was within 98.65±0.14% to 99.45±0.15%.The results within the range indicate uniform of mixing.  Optimized formulation (F7) showed the release of drug form gastroretentive formulation 99.45% after 12 hrs. and marketed formulation showed the release of 95.65% after 1.5 hrs. When the regression coefficient values of were compared, it was observed that ‘r²’ values of first order was maximum i.e. 0.972 hence indicating drug release from formulations was found to follow first order release kinetics.

Key words: Flurbiprofen, Gastroretentive drug delivery system, Suatain release tablets, formulation, evaluation