Formulation And In Vitro Evaluation of Colon Targeted Matrix Tablets of Mebeverine Hydrochloride Using Natural Polymers

BACKGROUND: The present study focuses on the design and evaluation of colon targeted matrix tablets of Mebeverine hydrochloride using natural gums like guar gum, xanthan gum at different concentrations. This novel approach is expected to be promising drug delivery system for delivering Mebeverine HCl to the colon for its local action and thereby minimizing systemic side effects of the drug. METHOD: The tablets were prepared by wet granulation method and the compressed tablets were evaluated for the hardness, uniformity of weight, friability, drug content and in vitro dissolution studies. RESULTS & DISCUSSION: All the physical characteristics evaluated for the tablets were found to be within the acceptable limits. Drug content was found to be in the range of 97.57±0.12 to 100.01±0.39% reflecting good uniformity within the batches of different tablets. The in vitro release study was performed in 0.1N HCl pH 1.2 for 2 hrs followed by phosphate buffer pH 6.8 upto 24 hrs. The optimized formulation F4 containing 40% of guar gum released less amount of drug in first 2 hrs in pH 1.2 compared to other formulations and showed controlled release over a period of 24hrs. The drug release followed first order kinetics and the mechanism of drug release was found to be both diffusion and dissolution controlled. CONCLUSION: The result of the studies showed that colon targeted matrix tablet containing 40% of guar gum was most likely to provide targeting of mebeverine HCl for local action in the colon.