Preparation and characterization of orodispersible films

• Autor(a) principal: Alves, Filipa Vaz de Carvalho
• Data de Publicação: 2013
• Tipo de documento: Dissertação
• Idioma: eng
• Título da fonte: Repositório Científico de Acesso Aberto de Portugal (Repositórios Cientìficos)
• Texto Completo: http://hdl.handle.net/10316/26088
• topic: Sistemas de distribuição de medicamentos; Administração oral; Química farmacêutica

In order to achieve maximum patient compliance, pharmaceutical companies have directed their research to the development of innovative delivery systems. As this matter, oral films have been claimed as one of the most promising approaches as a new drug delivery for oral administration, showing great interest and a market opportunity. As a relatively new pharmaceutical form, there is a lack of information and available studies concerning this technology. Therefore, it is extremely important to investigate the characteristics of commercially available oral films, which can provide essential information to the development of a new product. The main goal of this project was the chemical, thermal and mechanical characterization of two oral films available in the market: Listerine from Pfizer and Gas-X from Novartis. The characterization of the films was carried out using different techniques: chemical characterization, by FTIR analysis; thermal characterization by TGA, DSC and DMTA; mechanical properties, by tensile tests. Other important characteristics, such as disintegration time and water content were also evaluated. In order to understand the relationship between the composition, preparation procedures and the final properties of films, an attempt to reproduce Listerine and Gas-X was carried out. Throughout this work, methodologies for characterization of films were established and some relevant conclusions were taken. On the matter, it was possible to develop a formulation with higher similarity to commercial available film (Listerine), which is extremely relevant in the contribution to the development of new technologies for oral films. The results presented in Listerine revealed the importance of the formulation used in the properties of the oral films.