A SUCCESSFUL ATTEMPT TO ENHANCE SOLUBILITY OF BCS CLASS II DRUG USING LIQUISOLID COMPACT TECHNIQUE

The main purpose of the current research work is to enhance solubility and dissolution of BCS Class II drug, Flurbiprofen using liquid-solid compact technology. Flurbiprofen is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug indicated for acute and chronic treatment of rheumatoid arthritis, osteoarthritis, and spondylytis. The rationale to select Flurbiprofen as the model drug is that it belongs to BCS Class II, having poor aqueous solubility of 10.45 ± 3.2μg/ml. Hence an attempt was made to enhance solubility, which may further increase the dissolution profile of the drug. In this regard, several liquisolid compact formulations were prepared for flurbiprofen and subjected to evaluation.  They were prepared by using PEG 600 as a non-volatile solvent to dissolve the drug and further converted to freely flowing readily compressible powder using Avicel PH 102 as carrier material and Aerosil 200 as coating material. These liquisolid formulations were subjected to pre-compression rheological studies and post-compression evaluation parameters such as hardness, friability, weight variation, content uniformity, disintegration, and in-vitro dissolution. Results of dissolution profile of formulation TF3 showed a maximum release of 98% within 60 minutes, which was 2 folds higher than that of the directly compressed tablet (DCT). The probable reason for improved solubility may be due to improved wettability and greater surface area of drug-exposed to dissolution media. No drug-excipient incompatibility was observed, which was confirmed by FTIR and DSC studies. Finally, it can be concluded that liquisolid compact technique successfully enhanced solubility, which in turn enhanced the dissolution profile of BCS Class II drug Flurbiprofen.