A Role of Natural Polymers Used in Formulation of Pharmaceutical Dosage Forms: a Review

All pharmaceutical dosage forms contain many additives besides the active ingredients to assist manufacturing and to obtain the desired effect to the pharmaceutical active ingredients. The advances in drug delivery have simultaneously urged the discovery of novel excipients which are safe and fulfil specific functions and directly or indirectly influence the rate and extent of release and or absorption. Earlier used natural excipients are carrageenan, thaumatin, lard, shilajit, aerosil, myrobalan, and storax. Use of these natural excipients to deliver the bioactive agents has been hampered by the synthetic materials. Excipients are any component other than the active substances intentionally added to formulation of a dosage form. Novel drug delivery systems are developed to address the challenges of drug development such as bioavailability, permeability, and poor solubility. This review discusses about the majority of these plant-derived polymeric compounds, their sources extraction procedure, chemical constituents, uses and so delivery system recent investigations as excipients in novel drug.