Sodium alginate has been used for sustained delivery of several drugs since last few decades. In this work, an attempt has been made to formulate and characterize alginate beads along with additional blended polymers (Hydroxypropylmethylcellulose K100M, Hydroxypropylmethylcellulose E10 Premium, Eudragit L100 and Eudragit S100) in order to evaluate the effect of the added polymers on the drug release profile and other physicochemical characteristics of the alginate beads. Ofloxacin has been used as a model drug, which has a t1/2 of about 5-8 hours and is a broad spectrum antibiotic. The beads have been formulated by simple ionotropic gelation method and have been evaluated subsequently by various physicochemical characterization methods. The in-vitro drug release profile showed that there was an initial burst release for all the formulations with or without the additional polymers and thereafter sustained drug release for more than eight hours in phosphate buffer pH 7.2. Among the different additional polymers used, Hydroxypropylmethylcellulose K100M was found to affect the drug release significantly and gave the best release profile releasing about 62% drug in 8 hours.
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