Bilayer Floating Tablets for Gastroretentive Drug Delivery System
Oral delivery of the drug is by far the most preferable route of drug delivery due to the ease of administration, patient compliance and flexibility in the formulations but has a drawback of non-site specificity and short gastric resident time. In recent years, scientific and technological advancements have been made in the development of novel drug delivery systems by overcoming physiological troubles such as short gastric residence times and unpredictable gastric emptying times. Among Several approaches of floating systems, Bilayer floating technology is considered as promising approach. It combines the principle of bilayer technology and floating mechanism. The combined principle of bilayer floating tablet helps to release initial dose from the immediate release layer to reach the plasma concentration and then the floating layer absorbs gastric fluid forming an impermeable colloidal gel barrier on its surface, maintains a bulk density less than unity and thereby remains buoyant in stomach providing steady state concentration of drug in system. This review focuses on bilayer floating tablet technology a new era of gastro retentive drug delivery system, its advantages over conventional tablets and it also summarizes the bilayer tablet presses used in the industry, formulation design and evaluation parameters of bilayer floating tablets.