IJRPC 2012, 2(4) Ashok Kumar et al ISSN: 22312781 996 INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF RESEARCH IN PHARMACY AND CHEMISTRY Available online at www.ijrpc.com FORMULATION AND IN VITRO EVALUATION OF FAMOTIDINE FLOATING TABLETS BY LIPID SOLID DISPERSION SPRAY DRYING TECHNIQUE Ashok Kumar D* and Guru Prasad Mohanta Department of Pharmacy, Faculty of Engineering and Technology, Annamalai University, Annamalai Nagar, Tamil Nadu, India. INTRODUCTION The present research was focused to develop famotidine loaded lipid solid dispersion floating tablets by spray drying technique. Development of oral controlled release systems has been a challenge to formulation scientists because of the difficulty in localizing the system in target areas of the gastrointestinal tract 1 . In recent years, per oral dosage forms for gastric retention have attracted more and more attention for their theoretical advantage in gaining control over the time and the site of drug release. Gastric retention has received significant interest in the past few decades as most of the conventional oral delivery systems have shown some limitations related to fast gastric emptying time 2 . A gastro retentive dosage form (GRDF) can overcome this problem and is particularly useful for drugs that are primarily absorbed in the duodenum and upper jejunum segments. GRDF technology is one of the promising approach for enhancing the bioavailability and controlled delivery of drugs that exhibit narrow absorption window 3 . These drug delivery systems have been shown to possess better efficacy in controlling the release rate for drugs with site specific absorption 4 . Famotidine (FD) is a histamine H 2 receptor antagonist which is widely prescribed in gastric ulcers, duodenal ulcers, Zollinger-Ellison syndrome and gastro esophageal reflux diseases. This drug completely antagonises the parietal cell H 2 receptor. It inhibits histamine, gastrin and acetylcholine stimulated acid secretion; pepsin secretion also falls with the reduction in volume of gastric juice. It increases the incidence and rate of healing of peptic ulcers 5 . Research Article ABSTRACT The purpose of this investigation was to prepare a gastro retentive drug delivery system of famotidine tablets. Floating tablets of famotidine were prepared employing lipid solid dispersion spray drying technique with gelucire 50/ 13 and compritol 888 along with HPMC K100M, lactose, sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. The floating tablets were evaluated for uniformity of weight, hardness, friability, drug content, in vitro buoyancy and dissolution studies. The effect of release enhancer on drug release profile and floating properties were investigated. The prepared tablets exhibited satisfactory physico-chemical characteristics. Formulation containing gelucire 50/ 13 and compritol 888 with HPMC K100M (FT5 & FT8) showed good results in invitro buoyancy, but formulation containing gelucire 50/ 13 and compritol 888 alone failed to float. Increase in the HPMC K100M level was found to increase the floating time of the tablets. From the results it was concluded that famotidine loaded lipid solid dispersion floating tablets prepared by spray drying method is efficient technique for gastro retent ive dosage form. Keywords: Famotidine, floating tablets, in vitro buoyancy, lipid solid dispersion.