EVALUATION OF Merremia tridentata MUCILAGE AS BINDING AGENT INTABLET DOSAGE FORMS

An increasing interest in the use of natural polymers or gums in pharmaceutical formulations focusing the tremendous orientation to discover and extract such gums. The pharmaceutical industry is ever thirsty to satisfy patient’s therapeutic needs by utilizing inactive excipients along with active ingredients in formulation development. Binders are added to tablet formulations to add cohesiveness to powders thereby providing the necessary bonding to form granules which under compaction form a compact mass as tablet. Binders are also essential to achieve the hardness of the tablet. The development of new excipients for potential use as binding agent in tablet formulations continues to be of interest. The present paper consisted of the evaluation of mucilage of Merrimia tridentata roots for its binding property in solid dosage forms by using starch as a standard binder. Ibuprofen was used as a model drug and tablets were prepared using mucilage obtained from roots of Merremia tridentate as a test binder and starch as standard binder by wet granulation method. The granules were evaluated for flow properties, drug excipient compatibility and compressibility index and tablets were evaluated for weight variation, hardness, friability, disintegration time and dissolution rate. The similarity factor was determined for comparison of dissolution profiles of test and standard tablets. It has been found from the present study that the roots of plant Merremia tridentata has a good mucilage content which may be taken as a good natural source of mucilage for better binding properties with comparable flow properties, disintegration time, hardness and release rate similar to starch.