Abstract

The objective of present study is to develop mouth dissolving tablets of an antihypertensive drug, olmesartan medoxomil. Olmesartan is a highly potent, long-acting and selective angiotensin II type 1 (AT) receptor blocker. It is administered orally as an inactive prodrug olmesartan medoxomil which is rapidly and completely converted to olmesartan during gastrointestinal absorption. In this investigation rapid disintegrating tablets were prepared by using various super disintegrating agents; Crospovidone, Croscarmellose sodium and Sodium starch glycolate in concentrations 3%, 4% and 5% by direct compression technique. Prepared tablets were evaluated for thickness, uniformity of weight, hardness, friability, wetting time, in-vitro disintegration time, drug content and in vitro drug release. Disintegration time and drug release were taken as the basis to optimize the rapidly disintegrating tablets. All the formulations were evaluated for the influence of disintegrants and their concentrations on the characteristics of rapid disintegrating tablets mainly in terms of disintegration time and dissolution studies. Among all the formulations, the batch prepared using 5% crospovidone (F6) showed better disintegration time of 18 sec. The formulations (F4, F5 and F6) with crospovidone showed more than 90% drug release within 30 min.  The formulations with different superdisintegrants to improve the drug release rate & disintegration time were found to be in the following order, Crospovidone > Croscarmellose sodium > Sodium starch glycolate respectively.