OPTIMIZING THE FORMULATION VARIABLES FOR ERLOTINIB LOADED CHITOSAN NANOPARTICLES

Objective: There is rapidly growing interest in the development of nanoparticles drug delivery mainly for anticancer drugs as it promises to solve problems to several related to anticancer drugs. The aim of present work was to formulate erlotinib loaded chitosan nanoparticles using probe sonication technique. The objective of the study was to investigate the effect of surface stabilizers and sonication time on the entrapment efficiency of erlotinib loaded chitosan nanoparticles. Methods: In this work, three parameters were evaluated i.e. different surface stabilizers, amount of surface stabilizers (50 – 150 mg) and sonication time (6 – 15 min). The formulated chitosan nanoparticles were characterized by particle size, polydispersity index, percentage yield, loading capacity, entrapment efficiency, differential scanning calorimetry and fourier transform infrared spectroscopy. Results: It was found that batch PNP-11 (formulated using PEG 600 having amount of 50 mg at sonication time ~ 15 min) has a maximum loading capacity 76.07±0.14 (w/w), entrapment efficiency 73.60 ± 0.17% (w/w) and smallest particle size of 59.80 nm out of all the thirteen formulations (PNP-1 to PNP-13). The DSC analysis of PNP-11 suggested a molecular dispersion of drug inside the system. Infrared analysis of PNP-11 showed no interaction between drug and polymer during the formulation process. Conclusion: The nano-effects due to biocompatible cross-linked chitosan and sonication time are the critical parameters for the development of erlotinib loaded nanoparticles.