Pharmaceutical sciences-1974: literature review of pharmaceutics

Film coatings for taste masking and moisture protection

Taste masking and moisture protection of oral dosage forms contribute significantly to the therapeutic effect of pharmaceutical and nutraceutical formulations either by ensuring patient compliance or by providing stability through shelf life of the dosage form. Among different types of taste, bitter taste is the most relevant for patient acceptance because of the extremely high sensitivity. As hydrolysis is the most common mode of degradation of an active ingredient, moisture protection plays a vital role in the stability of the active during manufacturing and storage. Optimized oral dosage forms need to reliably hinder the release of bitter drug molecules in the mouth or ensure stability of the active compound, while also ensuring fast drug release in the stomach to enable early therapeutic onset. Besides different formulation concepts, film coating is found to be the most effective and commonly used approach for taste masking and moisture protection. Film coating can be achieved through the use of water-soluble, cationic, anionic or neutral insoluble polymers from different chemical structures. Cationic polymers provide efficient moisture protection as well as taste masking without influencing the release of the drug in the gastric fluids. Polymers may be sprayed onto various types of cores from dispersions or solutions in organic, solvents or water in drum or fluidzed bed coaters. Applied quantities need insuring complete coating thickness ranging from 0.5 to 50 μm or more finally. Insulating excipients, such as hydrophobic plasticizers, lipids, pigments or other insoluble substances will influence the functionality of films. Organoleptic tests are still common in testing the quality of taste-masked formulations. Recently, multi-channel taste sensors have been developed to quantify different types of taste. Dynamic vapor sorption technique and studies at elevated temperature provide effective concepts study the efficacy of the formulations. Efficient taste masking and reliable moisture protection of solid oral dosage forms can be achieved by film coating implementing the options of pharmaceutical polymers and processes.

Pharmaceutical Applications of Shellac: Moisture-Protective and Taste-Masking Coatings and Extended-Release Matrix Tablets

Shellac is a natural polymer, which is used as enteric coating material in pharmaceutical applications. The major objective of the present study was to investigate the potential of shellac for other purposes, namely to provide moisture-protective and taste-masking coatings as well as extended-release matrix tablets. The efficiency of shellac to achieve moisture protection and taste masking was compared with that of hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC), which is most frequently used for these purposes. Shellac-coated tablets showed lower water uptake rates than HPMC-coated systems at the same coating level. The stability of acetylsalicylic acid was higher in tablets coated with shellac compared with HPMC-coated systems, irrespective of the storage humidity. Therefore, lower shellac coating levels were required to achieve the same degree of drug protection. Shellac coatings effectively masked the unpleasant taste of acetaminophen tablets. Compared to HPMC, again lower coating levels were required to achieve similar effects. The resulting drug release in simulated gastric fluid was not significantly altered by the thin shellac coatings, which rapidly ruptured due to the swelling of the coated tablet core. In addition, shellac was found to be a suitable matrix former for extended-release tablets. The latter could be prepared by direct compression or via wet granulation using ethanolic or ammoniated aqueous shellac binder solutions. The resulting drug-release patterns could effectively be altered by varying different formulation and processing parameters.

The influence of microencapsulation using Eudragit RS100 on the hydrolysis kinetics of acetylsalicylic acid

Homogeneous Eudragit RS100 matrix microspheres containing molecularly dispersed acetylsalicylic acid (ASA) were prepared in order to investigate the effect of encapsulation on the decomposition rate of a hydrolytically susceptible drug. ASA-loaded microspheres of this non-eroding polymer matrix were analysed at predetermined time points following immersion of the microspheres in temperature controlled buffer systems at pH 1.2 or pH 12.1 at 30, 40 or 50 degrees C. The mass balance of the total amount of solutes (ASA and SA) initially located within the microsphere interior was equal to the sum of the amount of solutes remaining in the microsphere interior and the amount of solutes in the aqueous phase at any time during the course of the study. Each analysis involved the quantitation of four species; the drug and decomposition product, salicylic acid (SA), in both the microspheres phase and the external aqueous phase. A simple model system using first-order rate approximations for the concurrent Fickian diffusion and hydrolysis decomposition of the drug resulted in a multiexponential expression which adequately described the time-course profile of the drug. SA-loaded microspheres were used as a control under similar conditions to determine the magnitude of the contribution of microsphere phase hydrolysis of ASA to the overall rate of drug loss from the microspheres. Results indicated that microspheres phase hydrolysis of ASA was minimal. Even after 900 h of immersion in pH 12.1 buffer some ASA remained within the microsphere. It is postulated that the matrix incorporated drug is essentially shielded from hydrolytic attack until it is liberated into the external aqueous environment. Electrostatic association of the drug with the charged quaternary residues in the polymer along with the limiting availability of water within the microsphere may be responsible for the observed stability of ASA in aqueous swollen ASA-loaded Eudragit microspheres.