Development and Evaluation of Push-pull Based Osmotic Delivery System for Ropinirole

Ropinirole hydrochloride is indicated in Parkinson’s disease and Restless leg syndrome. In advanced Parkinson’s disease the usual dose of Ropinirole hydrochloride is 0.25 to 5 mg three to four times a day. Hence, an attempt was made to develop a once-a-day controlled release Osmotic drug delivery system. This may offer significant patient benefits by providing enhanced efficacy and reduced side effects and may also reduce the number of daily doses compared to conventional therapies. An oral push-pull system that can deliver Ropinirole hydrochloride for extended period of time has been developed and characterized. A bilayer osmotic drug delivery system was developed using drilling technique. The push layer swells releasing the drug at a controlled rate. An optimized system was selected to study the effect of pH of dissolution medium and the effect of agitation intensity. The drug release was found to follow zero order kinetics. The developed push-pull osmotic system showed the desired once-a-day release kinetic. INTRODUCTION: The development of oral osmotic pumps has been the subject of increasing interest and in the past 20 years various types of oral osmotic delivery systems have been developed and studied for drug possessing differing aqueous solubilities. Oral osmotic pumps can deliver drugs in a controlled manner over a prolonged period of time, and various types of osmotic pumps have been described . Push-pull osmotic drug delivery features a semipermeable, rate-controlling membrane surrounding an osmotic core, which contains a push layer and a drug layer. The rate-controlling membrane consists of cellulose acetate with various hydrophilic-hydrophobic plasticizers. The push layer swells releasing the drug at a controlled rate. This may offer significant patient benefits by providing enhanced efficacy and reduced side effects and may also reduce the number of necessary daily doses compared to conventional therapies . FIGURE 1: PUSH-PULL OSMOTIC PUMP Parkinson’s disease (PD) is a neurodegenerative disorder. It has worldwide incidence of 20 in 100,000 and is estimated to cost £ 700 million per year in drug treatment .