HYDROTROPIC SOLUBILIZATION: A PROMISING TECHNIQUE TO ENHANCE SOLUBILITY OF POORLY WATER SOLUBLE DRUG LUMEFANTRINE

Solubility of drug is considered to be one of the crucial parameter to achieve its desired concentration in systemic circulation and better pharmacological response. As most of the drugs available are poorly aqueous soluble, solubility enhancement has become major challenge to the formulators in the product development of many orally administered drugs. Therapeutic response of drug as well bioavailability can be limited by poor aqueous solubility of drugs. Earlier, many techniques have been developed for enhancing solubility of drugs. Apart from those, hydrotropic solubilization is one of the solubility enhancement techniques applicable to enhance solubility of hydrophobic drugs with the use of hydrotropes like sodium benzoate, urea, piperazine etc. In the present investigation Lumefantrine, an anti malarial drug was selected as model drug for the reason it has very low water solubility of 0.009 mg/ml and belongs to BCS Class IV. The key objective of current research work was to enhance aqueous solubility of this drug using hydrotropic solubilization technique. Solubility studies were performed using various concentrations of hydrotropes like sodium citrate, sodium benzoate, etc. The results suggested that solubility of Lumefantrine was increased more than 30 folds when added to 30% sodium citrate solution and marked its importance in pharmaceutical field.