DEVELOPMENT OF A POLYHERBAL CAPSULE FOR THE TREATMENT OF HYPERLIPIDAEMIA

Hyperlipidaemia is mentioned as one of the life-style-related diseases as much as so for diabetes. In the present study an attempt was made to develop herbal capsules, which are containing the extract of Murraya koenigii and Achyranthus aspera. One of the major concerns in designing new formulation is that the active ingredient should be compatible with all the excipients and packaging material components. Incompatibilities will affect the efficiency of the drug. Thermoanalytical techniques were effectively employed for the preformulations studies. The results obtained by the thermoanalytical techniques showed no chemical incompatibility between hard gelatin capsule shell and extract. The results were further confirmed by IR spectroscopy. The herbal capsule was stored at different temperatures viz., 25 °C, 40 °C and 50 °C for shelf life evaluation. The organoleptic properties of the herbal capsule remains unchanged at tested temperatures throughout the stability study. The shelf life of the herbal capsule was found to be 6.4 years. The Harborne’s Quantitative Alkaloid determination method proved to be selective, precise, linear, sensitive, and adequate for the determination of alkaloid content in the extract. The percentage alkaloid content in the herbal capsule remained above 90% throughout the 3 year study for room temperature samples. The percentage alkaloid content remained above 90% for a period of 6 months and 3 months for the samples kept at 40 °C and 50 °C. The herbal capsule showed maximum pharmaceutical elegance and remained stable throughout the observation period.