Gellan gum based microparticles of metoclopromide hydrochloride for intranasal delivery: development and evaluation

The purpose of this study was to develop nasal microparticles of metoclopromide employing gellan gum as a polymer by spray drying method. This method of microencapsulation is particularly less dependent on the solubility characteristics of the drug and polymer and is simple, reproducible, and easy to scale up. The microparticles were evaluated for characteristics like particle size, incorporation efficiency, swelling ability, zeta potential, mucoadhesion, thermal analysis, X-ray diffraction (XRD) study and in vitro drug release. The microparticles so prepared had irregular shape and smooth but distorted surface morphology. They were negatively charged. The particle size ranged from 9.38 to 10.67 microm. Differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) studies revealed that metoclopromide was molecularly dispersed inside the microparticles. The swelling was increased with increase in amount of polymer. The release of drug from microparticles was moderately sustained without lag time and attributed to formation of hydrogel; ionically cross linked hydrogel was hypothesized. The formulation was found to be non toxic to nasal tissue. These in vitro preliminary results show that spray dried microparticles based on gellan gum could be suitable nasal delivery system for the administration of metoclopromide.