Abstract
A promising approach to improve the solubility of poorly water-soluble drugs and to overcome the stability issues related to the plain amorphous form of the drugs, is the formulation of drugs as co-amorphous systems. Although polymer coatings have been proven very useful with regard to tablet stability and modifying drug release, there is little known on coating co-amorphous formulations. Hence, the aim of the present study was to investigate whether polymer coating of co-amorphous formulations is possible without inducing recrystallization. Tablets containing either a physical mixture of crystalline indomethacin and arginine or co-amorphous indomethacin-arginine were coated with a water soluble polyvinyl alcohol-polyethylene glycol graft copolymer (Kollicoat® Protect) and stored at 23 °C/0% RH and 23 °C/75% RH. The solid state properties of the coated tablets were analyzed by XRPD and FTIR and the drug release behavior was tested for up to 4 h in phosphate buffer pH 4.5. The results showed that the co-amorphous formulation did not recrystallize during the coating process or during storage at both storage conditions for up to three months, which confirmed the high physical stability of this co-amorphous system. Furthermore, the applied coating could partially inhibit recrystallization of indomethacin during drug release testing, as coated tablets reached a higher level of supersaturation compared to the respective uncoated formulations and showed a lower decrease of the dissolved indomethacin concentration upon precipitation. Thus, the applied coating enhanced the AUC of the dissolution curve of the co-amorphous tablets by about 30%. In conclusion, coatings might improve the bioavailability of co-amorphous formulations.
Original language | English |
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Journal | European Journal of Pharmaceutics and Biopharmaceutics |
Volume | 119 |
Pages (from-to) | 150-160 |
Number of pages | 11 |
ISSN | 0939-6411 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - Oct 2017 |
Keywords
- Co-amorphous
- Coating
- Drug release
- In situ amorphisation
- Kollicoat® Protect
- Physical stability