Preparation and Characterization Studies of Nanofiber and Orodispersable Film Formulations of Enoxolone

Enoxolone is a pentacyclic triterpenoid observed from Glycyrrhiza glabra and it has an antibacterial, antiviral and antifungal effects. However, enoxolone (ENX) has low oral bioavailability due to a first pass metabolism effect in the intestinal tract, poor intestinal permeability. The aim of this study was to develop the PVP based orodispersible films (ODFs) containing ENX by electrospinning and solvent casting methods and to compare in terms of their credibility for orodispersible delivery of ENX through a variety of in vitro and physical investigations. Physical properties such as thichness, weight variation, tensile strength, Young's modulus and elongation at break were investigated. Moreover, the in vitro release profile of ENX from prepared films were characterized in this study. The morphological structures of the prepared film formulations were examined under scanning electron microscope and the interaction between the ENX, film and PVP were determined by the FTIR spectroscopy.DSC analysis was performed to understand the thermal behavior of formulations and components. The results obtained proved that the electrospinning process can be used to produce ODF formulations with lower disintegration time (approximate to 4.52 min), lower diameter (approximate to 218.5 nm) and acceptable mechanical strength (approximate to 370.55 MPa). The preliminary results as a proofof-concept demonstration reported here will shed a new light on the future design and application of ODFs by electrospinning method.