Development of hollow/porous floating beads of metoprolol for pulsatile drug delivery.

The purpose of this work was to develop hollow calcium pectinate beads for floating pulsatile release of metoprolol tartrate intended for chronopharmacotherapy. Floating pulsatile concept was applied to increase the gastric residence of the dosage form having lag phase followed by a burst release. To overcome limitations of various approaches for imparting buoyancy, hollow/porous beads were prepared by simple process of acid-base reaction during ionotropic cross-linking using low methoxy pectin, xanthan gum, sodium carboxy methyl cellulose, guar gum, locust bean, gellan gum and calcium chloride as a cross-linking agent. Based on the preliminary studies optimized polymers were selected for formulation design with different polymers ratio concentrations. The obtained floating beads were studied for entrapment efficiency, buoyancy study, swelling index, surface morphology, in vitro release, stability studies and in vivo floating study. The floating beads obtained were porous, float up to 12-24 h. The radiological studies (X-rays) pointed out the capability of the system to release drug in lower parts of GIT after a programmed lag time for hypertension. The floating beads provided expected two-phase release pattern with initial lag time during floating in acidic medium followed by rapid pulse release in phosphate buffer. From the accelerated stability studies, it was observed that the formulations are quite stable. All formulations followed first-order release kinetics by diffusion mechanism. This approach suggested the use of hollow calcium pectinate microparticles as promising floating pulsatile drug delivery system for site- and time-specific release of drugs acting as per chronotherapy of diseases.