Characterization and in Vitro Drug Release Performance ofEudragit Coated Hibiscus Esculentus-Sodium Alginate Beads forColon Specific Delivery System

INTRODUCTION: Oral delivery of drugs is by far the most preferred route of drug delivery due to ease of administration, patient compliance and flexibility in formulation.Conventional oral dosage forms provide a specific drug concentration in systemic circulation without offering any control over drug delivery(1).These systems achieve as well as maintain drug concentration within therapeutically effective range needed for treatment only when taken several times a day. This results in significant fluctuation in drug levels.Now-a-days most of the pharmaceutical scientists are involved in developing an ideal drug delivery system (DDS). An ideal oral drug delivery system should steadily deliver a measurable and reproducible amount of drug to the target site over a prolonged period. Oral route has been the most popular and successfully used for sustained delivery of drugs because of convenience and ease of administration, greater flexibility in dosage form design and ease of production and low cost of such a system. CONTROLLED DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEMS: Controlled drug delivery is one which delivers the drug at a predetermined rate, locally or systemically, for a specified period of time. Continuous oral delivery of drugs at predictable and reproducible kinetics for pre determined period throughout the course of GIT. Recently, a new generation of pharmaceutical products, called controlled release drug delivery systems, such as those developed from the osmotic pressure activated drug delivery system, have recently received regulatory approval for marketing, and their pharmaceutical superiority and clinical benefits over the sustained release and immediate release pharmaceutical products have been increased AIM AND OBJECTIVE: Alginates are generally regarded as safe (GRAS) by the FDA .Sodium alginate (SA) is the sodium salt of alginic acid, which is aco-polymer of