Development of a new esomeprazole delayed release gastro-resistant pellet formulation with improved storage stability. (3rd June 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Barmpalexis, Panagiotis; Grypioti, Agni
• Is Part Of: Drug development and industrial pharmacy. Volume 44:Number 6(2018)
• Page Start: 942
• Page End: 952
• Publication Date: 2018-06-03
• Subjects: Esomeprazole -- gastro-resistance -- delayed-release -- sub(seal)-coating -- storage stability -- artificial neural networks; Pharmaceutical chemistry -- Periodicals; Pharmaceutical industry -- Periodicals; Drug Industry -- Periodicals; Technology, Pharmaceutical -- Periodicals; 615.05
• DOI: 10.1080/03639045.2017.1422513
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0363-9045

Abstract

Abstract: This study describes the development of a new esomeprazole (ESO) delayed release gastro-resistant formulation with improved storage stability. A three-step (drug-, sub(seal)- and enteric-) coating process was employed with the aid of a fluid bed coater. Several formulation factors (namely, size and quantity of starting non-pareil sugar spheres, binder quantity during drug-layering, sub(seal)-coating polymer type, and quantity and enteric coating quantity) were evaluated and the whole process was modeled with the aid of feed-forward back-propagation artificial neural networks (ANNs). Results showed that the selection of small-sized starting spheres (45/60 mesh size) leads to pellet agglomeration, while as sub(seal)-coating weight gain increases a reduction in ESO dissolution rate is observed. The enteric-coating applied (Eudragit L30D-55) showed good gastro-resistant performance in both 0.1 N HCl and pH 4.5 media, while immediate release profiles with more than 85% of ESO being released in less than 30 min were obtained. The effect of cellulose-based sub(seal)-coating polymers, (namely, hydroxypropyl cellulose and hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose) on formulation's storage stability at 40 ± 2 °C/75 ± 5%RH indicated that only hydroxypropylmethyl cellulose was able to stabilize ESO delayed-release formulations in terms of assay, dissolution, impurities, and gastro-resistance performance. Finally, scanning electron microscopy (SEM) analysis revealed smooth and homogeneous external surface/coating layers in all three levels (drug-, sub(seal)-, and enteric- coating), while x-ray diffraction showed no polymorphic transformations.