Fabrication and evaluation of captopril modified-release oral formulation

Abstract

The present research was directed towards fabrication of modified-release captopril oral formulation. A 32 full factorial design was employed for optimization using captopril to Compritol® ATO 888 ratio (X1) and extragranular fraction of ethyl cellulose (X2) as independent variables. The percentage drug released in 1 h (Y1) and the time required to release 80% of the drug (Y2) were selected as dependent variables. Eutectic blend of camphor and menthol was used as a solvent to facilitate the drug distribution in matrix. The optimized batch containing 50 mg captopril, 160 mg Compritol® ATO 888 and 220 mg ethyl cellulose was formulated by overlapping the contour plots of Y1 and Y2. The responses Y1 and Y2 of optimized batch were 25% and 520 min, respectively. The kinetics of drug release was best explained by Korsmeyer-Peppas model. The results of artificial neural network were superior in prediction power than the factorial design for both the responses (Y1 and Y2).