Formulation, optimization and evaluation of taste masked oral disintegrating tablet of verapamil HCl

Abstract

Verapamil HCl is calcium channel blocker used for the treatment of hypertension, irregular heartbeat, angina, and to control the systolic and diastolic blood pressure. As Verapamil HCl is bitter in taste, taste masking is required for preparing oral disintegrating tablet. To mask the taste, we used resin Indion 234. Oral disintegrating Tablets were made using various superdisintegrants (crosspovidone, SSG, Kyron T 314) at 3 different concentrations with three different ratios (Drug: Indion 234) 1:1, 1:2, 1:3 of drug and resin equivalent to 40mg form a Drug Resin complex (DRC). Crosspovidone shows the best disintegration time and it is further used for the formulation of the tablets. All the formulations were evaluated for parameters such as hardness, friability, disintegration time, in vitro drug release. An effective formulation F8 having hardness 4.1 kg/cm^2, disintegration time of 21sec. and in vitro drug release of 98.87% after 20min. The bitterness scale 0.6 confirmed by study on human volunteers. The taste masking of the drug confirmed by FTIR, DSC study and the in vitro release of the DRC.