Studies on Rebamipide Loaded Gastroretentive Alginate Based Mucoadhesive Beads: Formulation & In-vitro, In-vivo Evaluation

Introduction: Oral route is the most common and convenient route to deliver the drug. Many oral drug delivery systems were developed to improve drug bio availability; gastro retentive drug delivery system is one of them. Gastroretentive drug delivery system is the system in which a drug can remain in the gastric region for several hours in order to prolong its gastric residence time. The purpose of this work was to develop and evaluate rebamipide loaded gastro retentive alginate based muco adhesive beads. Materials and Methods: Rebamipide loaded alginate beads were prepared by ionotropic gelation and polyelectrolyte complexation method. Prepared beads were characterized for IR, DSC, SEM and evaluated for dissolution and stability studies. Results: The FTIR spectra revealed that there were no interaction between drug and excipients. The particle size analysis showed that beads with 3% of sodium alginate were spherical in shape. The mucoadhesion study reveals that as concentration of alginate and carbopol 934 increases percentage of mucoadhesion also increases. Conclusion: From in-vivo study it was concluded that the prepared formulation showed better control on ulcer than that of pure rebamipide. Rebamipide was successfully formulated as gastroretentive floating and mucoadhesive alginate beads by using ionotropic gelation and polyelectrolyte complexation method. Key words: Rebamipide, Gastroretentive, Alginate beads, Mucoadhesion and Carbopol 934.