FABRICATION AND CHARACTERIZATION OF METFORMIN HYDROCHLORIDE LOADED MICROSPHERES BY INCORPORATING NATURAL AND SYNTHETIC POLYMERS FOR COMPARATIVE ANALYSIS

The present developed method was designed to fabricate an innovative, simple, cost-effective, and compatible method for controlled delivery of Metformin hydrochloride (MF) by the use of natural and synthetic polymers for comparative analysis. For the most commonly used anti-diabetic drug Metformin hydrochloride, we have tried to formulate microspheres by incorporating natural and synthetic polymers separately in order to identify the most appropriate and safe type of controlled drug delivery system. All the fabricated microspheres formulations were characterized for various evaluating parameters like percentage yield, particle size analysis, micromeretic study, entrapment efficiency of drug, in-vitro drug release, FTIR study, XRD analysis, and quantitative analysis of most optimized formulation by using high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method.  The formulations from F1to F5 were prepared by using natural polymer sodium alginate, by ion- gelation technique, and the formulation code from F6 to F10 represents microspheres formulated by using synthetic polymer by emulsion-solvent evaporation technique.  It was observed that all prepared formulations showed improved flow behavior than a pure drug; on increasing the polymer concentration, the entrapment efficiency and particle size also increased, but better results were obtained for microspheres prepared using synthetic polymer. The in-vitro release study indicates that the microspheres of Metformin hydrochloride exhibited controlled release of drug for up to 8 h using only natural polymer, whereas extended drug release for 12 h was achieved using synthetic polymer, following matrix diffusion mechanism. The HPLC data revealed that the present developed method was most accurate for the fabrication of Metformin hydrochloride microspheres.