Spray Dried Glimepiride Formulations to Enhance Solubility and Dissolution Rate

The major drawback of poorly water soluble drugs will be their therapeutic application and efficacy as an oral dosage form is their very low aqueous solubility because of their hydrophobic nature. An attempt to improve the solubility of an oral anti-diabetic (Glimepiride) by preparing spray dried formulations of Glimepiride with PEG 20 000 in various ratios (G1-1:0.5 Glimepiride: PEG 20 000, G2-1:1 Glimepiride: PEG 20 000, G3-1:1.5 Glimepiride: PEG 20 000 and G4-1:2 Glimepiride: PEG 20 000) using Spray Drying Technique. The solubility of Glimepiride increased with increasing amount of PEG 20 000 in pH 6.8 buffer. Prepared spray dried formulations were evaluated by FT-IR, XRD, SEM and DSC. Among all prepared spray dried formulations G4 showed the best release pattern.