Felines may find orally administered medicines unpalatable, thus presenting a problem\nin the treatment of chronic conditions such as hypertension, a commonly diagnosed condition in\nfelines requiring daily administration of medication. A pertinent example is amlodipine besylate,\nformulations of which are known to be poorly tolerated by cats. There is therefore a need to develop\nfeline-specific delivery approaches that are both simple to administer and mask the taste of the drug,\nthereby enhancing the ownerâ??s commitment to treatment and the associated therapeutic outcome for\nthe companion animal. In addition, it is helpful to develop accessible and reproducible means of\nassessing taste for pre-clinical selection, hence the use of recently developed taste biosensor systems\nfor veterinary applications is an area of interest. This study focuses on developing feline-specific\namlodipine besylate formulations by improving the taste using a suitable flavouring agent while\nreducing dosage form size to a 2 mmdiameter mini-tablet. The choice of l-lysine as a flavouring\nagent was based on the dietary and taste preference of cats. The impact of l-lysine on the taste\nperception of the formulation was evaluated using a biosensor system (E-tongue) fitted with sensors\nsensitive to bitter tastes. The results showed l-lysine successfully masked bitterness, while the drug\nrelease studies suggest that it has no impact on drug dissolution. In addition, tableting parameters\nsuch as tablet mass uniformity, content uniformity, tablet diameter, thickness and hardness were all\nsatisfactory. The present study suggests that amlodipine besylate mini-tablets containing l-lysine\ncould improve the palatability and in turn support product acceptability and ease of administration.\nThese data could have an impact on orally administered medicines for cats and other veterinary\nspecies through product differentiation and competitive advantage in the companion animal market\nsector. The study also outlines the use of the electronic tongue as a tool for formulation selection in\nthe veterinary field.
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