Design, Development and Evaluation of Buccal Tablets of Pregabalin

The present investigation is concern with formulation and evaluation of mucoadhesive buccal tablets containing anti convulsant drug. Pregabalin to circumvent the first pass effect and to improve its bioavailability with reduction in dosing frequency and dose related side effects. The tablets were prepared by direct compression method. Nine formulations were prepared with different polymers like carbopol, HPMC, Xanthan gum with varying concentration. The tablets were tested for weight variation, hardness, drug content uniformity, swelling index and in vitro drug dissolution study. FTIR studies showed no evidence on interactions between drug and polymer. The in vitro release of Pregabalin was performed under sink conditions (Phosphate buffer PH 7.2, 37 ± 0.5°C) using dissolution apparatus USP type II. The best in vitro drug release profile was achieved with the formulation F6 which contains the drug, HPMC (30 mg). The formulation F6 containing 50 mg of Pregabalin exhibited 8 hrs sustained drug release i.e. 99.01%. The in vitro release kinetics studies reveal that formulation fits with Korsmeyer-Peppas model and mechanism of drug release is anolomus diffusion.