Development and evaluation of herbal formulation AKIGTU01 and AKIGCL03 against acne producing microbes

Acne vulgaris is a common global skin disease affecting teenagers and adults and exerting serious psychological impacts which includes everlasting scarring, reduced self-image, depression and anxiety. One of the suspected causative agent of acne is Propionibacterium acnes; a Gram positive anaerobic organism which lives in skin hair follicle and openings. Treatments currently available for acne include use of oral antibiotics, hormones, isotretinoin and also physical treatments like lesion removal and photo-therapy. All these are associated with risks and none is completely satisfactory.Therefore, natural alternatives are gaining greater research support but lacks sufficient studies. In our study we have isolated Propionibacterium acnes from infected individuals and tested the effect of certain chemicals and herbs/ vegetable extracts against it. There anti-acne property was studied and compared with commercially used antibiotics including Clinagel (Clindamycin phosphate), Vibramycin (Doxycycline), Erythromycin, Novidat (Ciprofloxacin) and Amoxil (Amoxicillin). Results indicate that some of the selected herbs and chemicals showed good activity against Propionibacterium acnes synergistic to the antibiotics when used alone or in combination. Findings of this research can play an important role in natural product based drug discovery for the treatment of Acne vulgaris.

Spectrophotometric Quantitation of Metformin in Bulk Drug and Pharmaceutical Formulations using Multivariate Technique

A sensitive and accurate UV spectrophotometric method with multivariate calibration technique for the determination of metformin hydrochloride in bulk drug and different pharmaceutical formulations has been described. This technique is based on the use of the linear regression equations by using relationship between concentration and absorbance at five different wavelength. The results were treated statistically and were found highly accurate, precise and reproducible. The method is accurate, precise (% recovery 102.50±0.063, CV≤0.56, r =0.997) and linear within the range 1-10 μg/ml. There was no interference from the excipients i.e Povidone K 30, magnesium stearate, lactose and hydroxypropylmethylcellulose. This statistical approach gives optimum results for the eliminating fluctuations coming from instrumental or experimental conditions.

Simultaneous determination of metformin, cimetidine, famotidine, and ranitidine in human serum and dosage formulations using HPLC with UV detection

A new, simple, and reliable reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic method has been developed and validated for the simultaneous determination of metformin (Metf), cimetidine (Cimt), famotidine (Famt), and ranitidine (Rant) in their synthetic mixtures and tablet formulations. These drugs were separated on a Purospher Star RP18 endcapped (250 mm × 4.6 mm i.d.) column packed with 5-μm particles. The mobile phase, optimized through an experimental design, consisted of methanol-water-triethylamine (20:80:0.05), whose pH was adjusted to 3.0 with phosphoric acid (85%) pumped at a flow rate of 1.0 mL/min. UV detection was performed at 229 nm. The method was validated in the sample concentration range of 5-25 μg/mL for all the drugs, where it demonstrated good linearity with r = 0.9998, 0.9979, 0.9997, and 0.9987 (n = 6), respectively. For independent 100% level samples, the intra-day and inter-day precision was in the range i.e. < 2.0 for all the drugs. The method demonstrated robustness, resisting to small deliberate changes in pH, flow rate, and composition (organic:aqueous ratio) of the mobile phase. The limit of detection values were 0.071, 0.116, 0.134, and 0.110 μg/mL, while the limit of quantitation were 0.217, 0.352, 0.405, and 0.368 μg/mL for Metf, Cimt, Famt, and Rant, respectively. The applicability of the method was demonstrated by determining the drug content in pharmaceutical formulations, where it exhibited good performance.

In vitro hypoglycemic activity of methanolic extract of some indigenous plants

Pakistan is rich in medicinally important plants and has ancient herbal treatment methods. Present work is based on the study of six indigenous plants Eugenia jambolana, Lawsonia inermis, Momordica charantia, Morus alba, Nigella sativa and Trigonella foenum graecum which show the inhibitory effect of glucose utilization, and are in use as hypoglycemic agents of varying degree in traditional system of medicine. The glucose uptake activity of (methanolic extracts) of these plants was tested in vitro and glucose was estimated by glucose oxidase method. The results in three different media revealed that, hypoglycemic activity is more prominent in neutral and basic media as compared to acidic medium.

Spectrophotometric methods for the simultaneous analysis of meclezine hydrochloride and pyridoxine hydrochloride in bulk drug and pharmaceutical formulations

Three new spectrophotometric procedures for the simultaneous determination of pyridoxine hydrochloride and meclezine hydrochloride are described. The first method depends on the application of simultaneous equation to resolve the interference due to spectral overlapping. The analytical signals were measured at 231 and 220 nm. Calibration graphs were established for 1 to 20 microGmL(-1) for pyridoxine hydrochloride and 0.5 to 10 microGmL(-1) for meclezine hydrochloride in binary mixture. In the second method, the determination of pyridoxine hydrochloride and meclezine hydrochloride was performed by measuring the absorbances at 290 and 235 nm in the simple absorbance spectra of their mixture. In third method a yellowish orange complex of pyridoxine hydrochloride was formed with ferric chloride, which absorbs in the visible region with lambda(max) at 445 nm. Calibration curve of complex formation range was conducted in between 20 to 250 microGmL(-1). These methods were validated with respect to accuracy, precision, linearity, limit of detection and quantification. Regression analysis of Beer's plot showed good correlation in a general concentration range of 1 to 20 microGml(-1) with correlation coefficient (r = 0.9999 and 0.9999; CV < 0.858) for pyridoxine hydrochloride, whereas meclezine hydrochloride concentration range 0.5 to 10 microGmL(-1) with correlation coefficient (r = 0.9998 and 0.9998; CV < 0.826). These methods can be readily applied, without any interference from the excipients. The suggested procedures were successfully applied to the determination of these compounds in synthetic mixtures and in pharmaceutical preparations, with high percentage of recovery, good accuracy and precision.

Development and validation of RP-HPLC method for the analysis of metformin

The reversed-phase high-performance liquid chromatographic (RP-HPLC) method has been developed to quantify metformin hydrochloride (MfCl) in raw material and pharmaceutical formulations using C(18) analytical reverse-phase column. Diazepam was used as an internal standard. Mobile phase consisted of methanol-water (30:70 v/v), pumped at a flow rate of 0.5 ml/min at ambient temperature and the retention time was about 4.4 min with symmetrical peaks. (MfCl) was detected by ultraviolet absorbance at 233 nm with no interference of commonly used excipients. The method was linear over the concentration range 0.312-5 mug/mL (R2 = 0.9995). The limit of detection of metformin was 0.1 mug/mL and the limit of quantitation was 0.3 mug/mL. The results obtained showed a good agreement with the declared contents in case of pharmaceutical formulations. The proposed method is rapid, accurate, economical and selective and it may be used for the quantitative analysis of metformin in Neodipar tablets because of its sensitivity and reproducibility.