Formulation and Evaluation of Stavudine Nanoparticles

The development of new delivery systems for the controlled release of drugs is one of the most innovative fields of research in pharmaceutical sciences. Nanoparticle specially designed to release the drug in the vicinity of target sites. The main objective of this work was to prepare and characterize surface modified stavudine entrapped low molecular weight chitosan (CS) nanoparticles as potential drug delivery system for anti-HIV chemotherapy. The particle size and the surface morphology results revealed that stavudine nanoparticles (SNPs) were smooth spheroidal with a size ranging from 260 nm-632 nm. The drug entrapment efficiency was found to be near 83%. In vitro release studies revealed that the rate of drug release from SNP5 was 93% in 24 hours. Release of drug follows zero order and show sustained release behavior. Koresmeyer peppase models shows that the drug follow non-Fickian transport as the value of n>0.5. The results suggest that chitosan polymer based nanoparticulate formulations are potential means to achieve release of stavudine for the prolonged period of time for effective therapy. The results showed that this method is reproducible easily.