FORMULATION AND COMPARATIVE STUDIES OF LOVASTATIN LOADED POLYMERIC NANOPARTICLES PREPARED BY IONIC GELATION AND SOLVENT EVAPORATION TECHNIQUE

Nanotechnology mediated drug delivery has been reported to enhance the drug efficacy, bioavailability, reduced toxicity and improve patient compliance by targeting the cells and tissues to elicit the desired pharmacological action. Low oral bioavailability of poorly water-soluble drugs poses a great challenge during development of drug delivery systems.  The purpose of the present work was to compare the characteristics of Lovastatin (LV) nanoparticles prepared by Ionic gelation (IG) and Solvent evaporation (SE) techniques using Sodium Tripolyphosphate and Pleuronic F68 as surfactants. In this study, an attempt was made to improve the solubility and dissolution characteristics of a poorly water-soluble drug LV using nanotechnology concept. The prepared nanoparticles were evaluated in terms of size, drug polymer compatibility by differential scanning calorimetry (DSC), polydispersity index (PDI), zeta potential, morphological characteristics by scanning electron microscopy (SEM), drug entrapment efficiency in-vitro release and stability studies. Nanoparticles prepared by IG and SE were in the range of (108nm to 486 nm) and (389nm to 521nm) with PDI of 0.447 and 0.557 having entrapment efficiency 68.2% and 62.8% with 15.3mV and 13.5mV zeta potential. In-vitro release studies showed that the nanoparticle formulations IG₂B and SE₄B were capable of releasing the drug in a sustained manner (68.58% and 84.81%) for about 10hours. Together, these results indicated that nanoparticulate formulations are ideal carriers for oral administration of LV having a great potential to improve the oral bioavailability and sustain the drug release, thereby minimizing the dose dependent adverse effects and maximizing the patient compliance.