Kazumi Danjo

Evaluation of Rapidly Disintegrating Tablets Prepared by a Direct Compression Method

To make rapidly disintegrating tablets with sufficient mechanical integrity as well as a pleasant taste, microcrystalline cellulose (MCC), Tablettose (TT), and crosslinked sodium carboxymethyl cellulose (Ac-di-sol) or erythritol (ET) were formulated. Tablets were made by a direct compression method (I). Tablet properties such as porosity, tensile strength, and disintegration time were determined. The tensile strength and disintegration time were selected as response variables, tablet porosity and parameters representing the characteristics of formulation were selected as controlling factors, and their relation was determined by the polynomial regression method. Response surface plots and contour plots of tablet tensile strength and disintegration time were also constructed. The optimum combination of tablet porosity and formulation was obtained by superimposing the contour diagrams of tablet tensile strength and disintegration time. Rapidly disintegrating tablets with durable structure and desirable taste could be prepared within the obtained optimum region.

Effect of additives on insulin absorption from intratracheally administered dry powders in rats

The lungs are useful for administration of macromolecules, which are poorly absorbed from the intestine. In the present study, we prepared several dry powder formulations of insulin using a spray drying technique to examine the effect of additives on insulin absorption. The bioavailability of insulin was estimated from the change in the plasma glucose level. The bioavailability of insulin from dry powder with no additive exceeded that obtained from pH 7.4 solution. The absolute bioavailability of insulin administered as a solution with 1.4 mg/dose of bacitracin or 1.0 mg/dose of Span 85 was almost 100%. The bioavailability of dry powder with 0.42 mg/dose of bacitracin was 20% that of the solution with 1.4 mg/dose of bacitracin. The insulin dry powder with 0.21 mg/dose of Span 85 showed a bioavailability less than that for the insulin solution with 0.1 mg/dose of Span 85. Bacitracin and Span 85 were not as effective in dry powder as in solution in the present study. While citric acid was more effective in dry powder that in solution to increase the hypoglycemic effect. The pH 5.0 and pH 3.0 solutions containing 0.19 mg of citric acid in 0.1 ml showed absolute bioavailabilities of 43% and 57%, respectively, while the bioavailabilities for dry powders containing 0.025 and 0.036 mg/dose citric acid were 42% and 53%, respectively. In addition, the hypoglycemic effect of dry powders continued for a longer period and remained at 240 min with the dry powders, while it disappeared at 180 min with the solutions. When the insulin dry powder containing 0.036 mg/dose of citric acid was administered, the lactate dehydrogenase activity, a sensitive indicator of acute toxicity to lung cells, in bronchoalveolar lavage was as low as that for saline administration, suggesting citric acid is a safe additive. Thus, citric acid appears to be a safe and potent absorption enhancer for insulin in dry powder.

Effects of Surface Processing of Lactose Carrier Particles on Dry Powder Inhalation Properties of Salbutamol Sulfate

The effects of the surface processing of lactose carrier particles on the dry powder inhalation properties of salbutamol sulfate were investigated. Lactose carrier particles were processed using a high-speed elliptical-rotor-type powder mixer (Theta-Composer). In the present study, drug/carrier powder mixtures were prepared, consisting of micronized salbutamol sulfate and coarse lactose carriers with various particle surface conditions prepared by surface processing. These powder mixtures were aerosolized by a Jethaler, and the in vitro inhalation properties of salbutamol sulfate were evaluated with a twin impinger. Compared with those of the powder mixed with unprocessed lactose carriers, the in vitro inhalation properties of the powder mixture prepared using the surface processed lactose carriers were significantly different, showing that the in vitro inhalation properties of salbutamol sulfate were improved. The in vitro inhalation properties increased with the rotor rotation rate. Using this surface processing system would thus be valuable for increasing the inhalation properties of dry powder inhalation with lactose carrier particles.

Universal wet-milling technique to prepare oral nanosuspension focused on discovery and preclinical animal studies - Development of particle design method.

Simple and easy methods to prepare oral nanosuspension of a poorly water-soluble pharmaceutical candidate compound, called a candidate, have been developed to support the discovery and preclinical studies using animals. The different wet-milling processes in miniature, middle and large preparation scales have been established in order to cover the various types of studies with wide scale. The powder of phenytoin, a poorly water-soluble model drug candidate, was suspended in the aqueous medium, in which the appropriate dispersing agents were dissolved, and milled by agitating together with small hard beads made of zirconia. Three general-purpose equipments with stirring, oscillating and turbulent motions were applied instead of the specific milling machine with high power to avoid much investment at such early development stage. The operational condition and dispersing agents were optimized to obtain finer particles using the middle-scaled oscillating beads-milling apparatus in particular. It was found that the nanosuspension, which whole particle distribution was in the submicron range, was successfully produced within the running time around 10min. By applying the newly developed dispersing medium, the nanoparticles with identical size distribution were also prepared using the stirring and turbulent methods on miniature and large scales, respectively; indicating only 50mg to 30g or more amount of candidate could be milled to nanosuspension using three equipments. The crystalline analysis indicated that the both crystal form and crystallinity of the original bulk drug completely remained after wet-milling process. The results demonstrated that the wet-milling methods developed in this research would be a fundamental technique to produce nanosuspension for poorly water-soluble and oral absorbable drug candidates.

Development of polymer film dosage forms of lidocaine for buccal administration. I. Penetration rate and release rate.

We examined the penetration rate of lidocaine (LC) through excised oral mucosa from hamster cheek pouch and the in vitro release rate of LC from film dosage forms with hydroxypropylcellulose (HPC) as a film base. Addition of glycyrrhizic acid (GL) to the HPC films increased the LC release rate almost GL-content-dependently, while an optimum GL content was observed for the LC penetration rate. No LC penetration was observed from an acidic aqueous solution (pH 3.4) of LC, suggesting only unionized LC can substantially penetrate through the mucosa. A significant relationship between the penetration rate of LC and the release rate of unionized LC was found, suggesting that the in vitro dissolution study is a useful tool to predict the penetration rate taking the unionized drug fraction into consideration.

Optimized pulmonary gene transfection in mice by spray-freeze dried powder inhalation.

Spray-freeze drying (SFD) is an attractive technique to prepare highly porous dry powders for inhalation. However, there have been few reports of its application to dry powder inhalers (DPIs). Therefore, in this study, we prepared dry plasmid DNA (pDNA) powders with different molecular ratios of chitosan to pDNA (N/P ratios) by SFD. All the pDNA powders were spherical and highly porous, with particles approximately 20-40microm in geometric diameter. The morphology changed little with the alteration of the N/P ratio. On electrophoresis, a band of linear pDNA was detected in the preparation without chitosan, suggesting the destabilization of pDNA through SFD. However, the addition of chitosan protected pDNA from destabilization. Moreover, the pDNA powders were evaluated for pulmonary gene transfection efficiency using an in vivo dual imaging technique for gene DPIs developed previously. Maximum gene expression was observed at 9-12h following pulmonary administration of the powders into mice. The powder with the N/P ratio of 10 had the highest gene transfection efficiency. A higher affinity of chitosan for pDNA and a smaller (approximately 100nm) pDNA/chitosan complex (N/Pf10) were found at pH 6.5 (in lung) than at pH 7.4 (in physiological conditions), suggesting that the effective compaction of pDNA by chitosan at the N/P ratio of 10 at pH 6.5 contributes to the gene transfection efficiency in the lung. These results suggest inhalable dry pDNA powders with chitosan prepared by SFD to be a suitable formulation for pulmonary gene therapy.

Chitosan–interferon-β gene complex powder for inhalation treatment of lung metastasis in mice

We prepared gene powders with chitosan as a non-viral vector and mannitol as a dry powder carrier to compare their gene expression and therapeutic efficacy to intravenous or intratracheal gene solutions using mice burdened with pulmonary metastasis prepared by injecting CT26 cells. The expression of a luciferase expression plasmid driven by the cytomegalovirus promoter (pCMV-Luc) and plasmid DNA encoding farnesylated enhanced green fluorescent protein (pEGFP-F) suggested that the genes expressed in both normal and tumorous tissues and the intratracheal powder resulted in higher expression than the intravenous or intratracheal solution. The intravenous and intratracheal solutions and the intratracheal powder of pCMV-Muβ encoding murine interferon-β were administered the day after the inoculation of mice with CT26 cells. Lung weight and the number of pulmonary nodules at day 21 were significantly suppressed by the three formulations at a dose of 10 μg (N/P = 5). Reducing the dose to 1 μg resulted in a loss of effect by the intravenous solution; however, the intratracheal formulations, especially the powder, were still effective. The intratracheal powder of pCMV-Muβ at a dose of 1 μg administered on day 1 significantly extended mean survival time compared to the untreated control. These findings showed that therapeutic gene powders are promising for gene therapy to treat lung cancer or metastasis.

Design of porous microparticles with single-micron size by novel spray freeze-drying technique using four-fluid nozzle

Spray freeze-drying (SFD) process, which is a novel particle design technique previously developed by authors, has been improved by using four-fluid nozzle (4N) instead of conventional two-fluid nozzle (2N) to expand its application in pharmaceutical industry. Aqueous spray solutions of the drug and the polymeric carrier were separately supplied into 4N, and atomized while colliding with each other at the tip of nozzle. The droplets of mixed solutions were directly immersed into liquid nitrogen and immediately frozen to form a suspension. Then, the iced droplets were lyophilized by freeze-dryer to prepare the composite particles of the drug and carrier. This process has been used in the present study to modify and enhance the dissolution profiles of poorly water-soluble drug, phenytoin. Water-soluble and enteric polymeric carriers in pharmaceutical use were used as a dissolution modifier. The SFD composite particles prepared by using 4N were fully characterized compared to those using 2N from morphological and physicochemical perspectives. It was found that the particles have fine porous structure producing vast specific surface area. Further, phenytoin was completely dispersed as amorphous state in the polymeric matrix with higher carrier ratio than phenytoin:carrier = 1:3. The dissolution of phenytoin from the water-soluble carrier-based particles was greatly enhanced because of large effective surface area and disappearance of crystalline. On the other hand, the release profiles from enteric carrier-based particles showed the typical enteric patterns, that is, delayed in acidic medium and accelerated in neutral pH. The results demonstrated that SFD technique using 4N has potential to develop the novel solubilized formulation for poorly water-soluble APIs.

Physicochemical Characterization and Drug Release Studies of Nilvadipine Solid Dispersions Using Water-Insoluble Polymer as a Carrier

Abstract Nilvadipine solid dispersions were prepared by the solvent method using water-insoluble polymers, including low-substituted hydroxypropylcellulose, croscarmellose sodium, carmellose calcium, carmellose, and crospovidone. Differential scanning calorimetry and powder x-ray diffraction analysis showed that nilvadipine was present in an amorphous state in the solid dispersion obtained using crospovidone as a carrier. The degree of crystallinity of nilvadipine was dependent on the ratio of nilvadipine to crospovidone, and nilvadipine was present in an amorphous state when the ratio of nilvadipine to crospovidone was below one-half. Fourier transform infrared studies suggested the presence of hydrogen bonding between nilvadipine and crospovidone in the solid dispersion. Dissolution studies indicated that the maximum percentage of dissolution and dissolution rate constants were markedly increased in nilvadipine with crospovidone solid dispersion, compared with those of pure nilvadipine and physical mixtures. The dissolution rate of nilvadipine solid dispersion with crospovidone could be calculated by the Higuchi square root time equation.

A Novel Apparatus for Rat in Vivo Evaluation of Dry Powder Formulations for Pulmonary Administration

The lungs have attracted increasing attention as a site for administration of drugs, including macromolecules that are poorly absorbed from the intestine. There have been a number of basic studies in which peptide solutions were administered to experimental animals via the lungs. Although there have been several studies of pulmonary peptide absorption from dry powder formulations, a simpler and more inexpensive apparatus for administration of dry powders would enhance rapid screening of the formulations. In this study, we developed a simple apparatus to disperse dry powders. The apparatus has two 3-way stopcocks; one allows dispersal of powders at a constant pressure and airflow, and the other allows rats to breathe before and after administration. Dry powders of fluorescein (FL) and FITC-dextran (FD4) were manufactured by the spray-drying technique. The effects of operating conditions on the absorption of these model drugs were examined in rats. The C(max) for FL from dry powder was lower than that from solution and mean residence time was extended, suggesting that dissolution was the rate-determining step for FL absorption from dry powder. For FD4, the rate of absorption may not be regulated by dissolution but by epithelial transport. Absorption of insulin from spray-dried powder via the rat trachea was investigated using this apparatus. Intratracheally administered spray-dried insulin powder decreased plasma glucose level to a greater extent than spray-dried insulin solution administered via the same route. Thus, the apparatus is simple, inexpensive, and useful for rapid screening of dry powder formulations.