ABSTRACT
The purpose of this study is to investigate the possibility of preparing controlled release tablets for sparingly soluble drug, nicardipine hydrochloride NC, which is chosen as a model drug for this study and hydroxypropyl methylcellulose HPMC as an excipient for controlling the drug release from tablets prepared using PEG4000. The solid dispersion NC:PEG4000 was prepared by fusion method and evaluated using dissolution test, differential scanning calorimetry DSC, Infra red spectra, and X-ray diffraction. Although NC is sparingly soluble in water but it is dissolved and released rapidly from NC:PEG4000 solid dispersion at different ratios and more than 80% of the drug is released after 45 min. On the other hand, the release rate of NC is decreased significantly as HPMC ratio is increased. The present results confirm that adding HPMC in the ratio 60% to the NC tablet prepared with PEG4000 could produce controlled release tablets which are in full agreement with FDA requirements for controlled release systems