FORMULATION AND EVALUATION OF CLARITHROMYCIN LOADED EMULGEL FOR TOPICAL DELIVERY

Emulgel is wastly growing field of topical drug delivery system and up till emulgels has limited marketed products.Gel and emulsion are combined to form the emulgels.Emulgels has many advantages as drug delivery system.Emulgel has property of gel and emulsion both and thus it has dual control release system.Emulgels have high patient compliance as it has advantages of both the gel and emulsion.Clarithromycin is BCS class II drug and hence hydrophobic in nature and has only 50% of bioavailability.Hence, it was necessary to improve the therapeutic effectiveness of drug.In the present study, an attempt was made to formulate and evaluate the emulgel of clarithromycin for topical delivery.All the emulgel formulations were evaluated for physical appearance, pH, viscosity, drug content and in-vitro drug release study.Emulgel prepared with menthol and 2% xanthan gum showed highest spreadability coefficient.In the in-vitro drug release study F3 formulation showed highest drug release 79.17% after 8 hours.Emulgel formulation showed better antimicrobial activity.From all the results obtained from the study, F3 was found as an optimized formulation.So, the results of the current study are encouraging, there is a potential for more pharmacokinetic research.