Development of oil-in-water Microemulsions for the oral delivery of Pioglitazone HCl.

Abstract

Poor aqueous solubility of Pioglitazone (PGZ) results in the delayed onset of action as a result subtherapeutic plasma drug levels may lead to therapeutic failure. In present study, oil-in-water (O/W) microemulsions (MEs) were developed and characterized as oral delivery systems for PGZ. Based on pseudo ternary phase diagrams, PGZ-loaded MEs with mean droplet sizes about 30 nm were successfully produced. Both the ultra filtration and dialysis studies revealed that the release of 80% of PGZ was released from the microemulsion within 12 hrs in vitro. The bioavailability studies for FPGZ2, MF, and PDZ-CD carried out using Wistar rats. Though there was no significant difference in Cmax (9.03 ± 0.98 μg/ml, 11.796 ± 1.23 μg/ml, and 10.02 ± 0.96 μg/ml) of the formulations, a significant difference (P < 0.01) in tmax values (4.0 hours for F-PGZ2 and MF and 0.793 hour for PGZCD) was observed. The decrease in tmax values indicates faster absorption of the drug from PGZ-CD formulation.