Krishnananda Kamath

The present work is aimed at Design and development of medicated lollipop containing Albendazole. One of the major health problems faced by hundreds of millions of school-age children is infection by helminths, more commonly known as worms. Albendazole is used as abroad-spectrum anthelmintic. The conventional dosage forms like tablets, capsules, syrups etc are inconvenient for paediatric, geriatric, bedridden patients because of difficult to swallow tablets and capsules or unpleasant taste of drug. As a result, the demand for developing new technologies has been increasing day by day. Lollipops are defined as the flavoured medicated dosage forms intended to be sucked and held in the mouth or pharynx containing one or more medicaments usually in the sweetened base.  Medicated lollipop is designed to improve patient compliance and increase oral retention time. The lollipops were prepared by heating and congealing method using hydroxypropylmethylcelluloseK4M as polymer. Drug-excipient compatibility study was carried out using FTIR. All the formulations were subjected to various physicochemical evaluations like weight variation, hardness, drug content, friability etc. The in-vitro dissolution study of F3 was carried out by two method a) Paddle method b) flow through cell method .The in-vitro permeation  study of F3 was found to be 72.2% at 30 min. Stability study was carried out as per ICH-Guidelines (Q1A) at 25±2oC/60±5% RH and 40±2oC/75±5% RH . From the present study it can be concluded that addition of hydrophilic polymers yield good result to prolong oral retention time of lollipop.

The purpose of the study was to prepare and evaluate liposomes containing Artemether, a lipophilic drug having short half life of 2-3hrs after oral administration. Thin film hydration method was used for the preparation of artemether-encapsulated conventional and PEGylated liposomal suspensions using various drug: lipid ratio and their characteristics, such as particle size, zeta potential, encapsulation efficiency, and in vitro drug release were investigated. The drug encapsulation efficiency of PEGylated liposomes was high when compared to conventional liposomes. The average particle size of both conventional and PEGylated liposomes was obtained in nanometers with PDI ranging from 0-0.356. Zeta potential of conventional liposomes was found to be more negative when compared to PEGylated liposomes. In-vitro drug diffusion studies was carried for period of 16 hrs where PEGylated liposomal formulation showed more sustained release compared to conventional liposomes. The conventional and PEGylated liposomal formulations followed zero order and Higuchi kinetics respectively. The artemether containing liposomes were successfully formulated and evaluated.

  Aceclofenac is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory, analgesic and antipyretic drug used in the treatment of rheumatic arthritis, post-traumatic pain, masculo-skeletal and joint disorder. Problem with this drug is poor solubility in water hence poor bioavailability after oral administration. The objective of the research work was to develop and evaluate mouth dissolving tablets of Aceclofenac by using sublimation technique. The sublimation technique is used to increase the porosity of the tablets in which camphor was used as subliming agents which in turn forms the porous structure on the surface of tablets after sublimation. Aspartame was used as sweetening agent. The formulated tablets were evaluated for different parameters like weight variation, hardness, friability, drug content, disintegration time, wetting time, water absorption ratio, and In-vitro dissolution studies. Based on the results, formulation F-3 & F-6 containing Crosprovidon and Kyron T-314 10% concentration as superdisintegrants showed the least wetting time of about 17 & 13 sec, disintegration time of 25 & 18 sec and drug release of about 89.13 & 99.14% within 180 sec respectively and was found to be promising and selected as the optimized formulations. From the results, it was concluded that mouth dissolving tablets with improved Aceclofenac dissolution could be prepared by sublimation of tablets containing suitable subliming agent. Key words: Aceclofenac, mouth dissolving tablets, in-vitro, sublimation technique.

  Pharmaceutical supply chain has always been a point of great interest in academic research as well as in industrial practice. However this popular buzzword still remains an ill-defined and poorly understood concept and this will provide a better understanding of the different levels of pharmaceutical supply chain issues and the terms regarding supply chain for pharmaceuticals. Though the pharmaceutical industry has grown by leaps and bounds the risk affecting it has also increased proportionately. Furthermore this addresses the issues of risk mitigation in pharmaceutical supply chain by providing quantified empirical results. Based on the available literature four major risks affecting the pharmaceutical supply chain were identified as regulatory risk, inventory risk, counterfeit risk and financial risk. Ranking and management strategies of these are based on Analytical Hierarchy Process model. Also solutions to these risks are provided based on the results of the survey questionnaires and literature study which would be best suited for the industry to flourish and survive in today’s competitive global marketplace.