FORMULATION DEVELOPMENT AND EVALUATION OF TABLETS CONTAINING ANOECTOCHILUS FORMOSANUS EXTRACT: PROCESS OPTIMISATION BY FULL FACTORIAL DESIGN

Abstract

AnoectochilusformosanusHayata (Orchidaceae) is an indigenous and valuable Taiwanese medicinal plant and has been used popularly as a nutraceutical herbal tea in Taiwan and other Asian countries.The present research investigation is focused on development of compressed tablets of AnoectochilusformosanusHayata (Orchidaceae) after its successive extraction with petroleum ether, chloroform, methanol and water by wet granulation using a 2² full factorial design with centre point, considering amount of polyvinylpyrrolidone K-30 and croscarmellose sodium as two independent variables. All the five batches of tablets prepared were portrayed satisfactory results in hardness, friability, weight variation and content uniformity tests. An immediate drug release pattern was evident from the dissolution profiles and mechanism of drug release was Non-Fickian transport.Slope of Weibull model had indicated that dissolution curves were sigmoid, S-shaped, with upward curvature followed by a turning point.Normal probability plots of response variables had supported the chosen interaction model. Furthermore, drug release pattern was found to be increasing with croscarmellose sodium and decreasing with polyvinylpyrrolidone K-30, which had been concluded from the regression equations, contour plots and corresponding response surface plots. Optimised values of polyvinylpyrrolidone K-30 and croscarmellose sodium were 60 mg and 52 mg respectively for the target values of 50% and 90% drug released after 20 and 40 minutes respectively.

Key words: Anoectochilusformosanus, Crosscarmellose sodium, Dissolution, Extracts, Full factorial design, Mathemaical models, Tablets