Akhilesh Dubey, Prabhakara Prabhu
Controlled release drug products are often formulated to permit the establishment and maintenance of drug concentration at target site for longer interval of time. One such technique of drug targeting is ‘niosome’. Niosomes are non-ionic surfactant vesicles obtained on hydration of synthetic nonionic surfactants, with or without incorporation of cholesterol or other lipids. They are vesicular systems similar to liposomes that can be used as carriers of amphiphilic and lipophilic drugs. Norfloxacin loaded niosomes were prepared by Lipid film hydration method with different surfactant to cholesterol ratio. The preformulations study was performed by FT-IR and UV spectroscopy to check the drug purity and stability. The niosomal suspensions were further evaluated for optical microscopy, entrapment efficiency, In vitro release study, Kinetic data analysis, Stability study. The formulation F4 which showed higher entrapment efficiency of 80.54 ±0.99. Release was best explained by the zero order kinetics. Kinetic analysis shows that the drug release follows super case II transport diffusion. Niosome formulation has showed appropriate stability for 90 days.
Keywords: Norfloxacin, Niosome, Span-60, Cholesterol, SEM, Kinetic analysis