Dissolution Advantage of Nitazoxanide Cocrystals in the Presence of Cellulosic Polymers

Salas-Zúñiga, Reynaldo; Rodríguez-Ruiz, Christian; Höpfl, Herbert; Morales-Rojas, Hugo; Sánchez-Guadarrama, Obdulia; Rodríguez-Cuamatzi, Patricia; Herrera-Ruiz, Dea

The above-described powder dissolution experiments under non-sink conditions showed that the best improvement of the NTZ dissolution profile was achieved with the NTZ-SUC cocrystal, in the presence of Methocel ® 60 HG. To evaluate if the polymer included in the solid formulation has an effect on the dissolution kinetics of the cocrystal, four pharmaceutical powder formulations were examined with cocrystal-polymer ratios of 0.0, 1.0, 2.5 and 5.0% (w/w). The dissolution performance of the formulated solid samples was analyzed by means of powder dissolution tests using the USP 1 (basket) apparatus. A similar strategy was employed for the evaluation of formulated cocrystals of carbamazepine [29, 30] . The dissolution profiles in pH 7.5 PBS for NTZ in pure form, a 2:1 stoichiometric physical mixture of NTZ and SUC, and NTZ-SUC (2:1) cocrystals formulated with an increasing amount of Methocel ® 60 HG are given in Figure 6 .