Formulation, Optimization and Evaluation of Ion Triggered Ophthalmic in Situ Gel

Topical eye drop is the convenient and patient compliant route of drug administration, particularly for the treatment of anterior part diseases. Transport of drugs to the targeted ocular tissues is limited by various precorneal, active and stationary ocular barriers. The aim of developed, optimized and evaluated ion sensitive brimonidine tartrate in situ gel is patient compliance and maximum therapeutic activity in the treatment of glaucoma. The effect of independent variables that are polymer concentration on dependent variables like the percent drug release, gelling time and viscosity was studied. The optimized formulation was further evaluated for ex-vivo study and histopathology study. Experimental study showed that optimized in situ gel formulation (F6) showed in vitro, ex vivo sustained release with polymer sodium alginate and hydroxypropyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) K4M. The optimized formulation F6 presented increased retention time upto 8 hours. The developed in situ gel can be a promising ophthalmic formulation to increase retention time of formulation and hence it will reduce the intra ocular pressure. The histopathology studies reveals the safety of prepared formulation. The stability studies revealed no significant change in the drug content and physical properties.