Articles

25 December 2013

FRUITS & VEGGIES GRANDIOSE ON PESTICIDES

Various investigations and concerning research reports reveal that although a Pesticides Act exists to safeguard consumer interest, there is no MRL (Maximum Residue Level) in place or regulations to enforce it. Nearly every food item from rice to veggies and fruits available in the market are contaminated with poisonous pesticides, authorities caution. Pesticides and insecticides could be detrimental to people’s immune and reproductive systems. It can even lead to infertility. Developmental toxins’ in these chemicals may adversely affect the development in children. They may also act as endocrine disrupters, leading to hormonal imbalances. These chemicals are also not biodegradable(able to decompose naturally). As such, they persist for a long time and get transferred into the food chain. This means that overtime, they get deposited in the human body.
25 December 2013

GENERIC DAVIDS AND INNOVATOR GOLIATHS

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ABOUT AUTHOR:
Amit Gangwal
Department of Pharmacognosy,
Smriti college of pharmaceutical education, Indore, Madhya Pradesh, India
gangwal.amit@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
Patents provide an incentive to the pharmaceutical industry to invest in the development of new medicines to treat diseases that are currently untreatable or incurable, and provide options when patients develop resistance to older drugs. Around the world it has been a challenge for last one or two decades to innovate concepts and mechanisms to hasten the drug development schemes/process, while augmenting dereplication ways in a full proof manner to save time, man power and financial input. High failure rate at any stage in drug development process is bothering and evoking various tools to be discussed like never before. The pharmaceutical industries world over, are in a period of crisis due to the poor number of approved drug molecules relative to the high levels of R&D investment. The drug industry is facing major scientific and strategic challenges. Moreover competition from generic giants is giving tough challenge to established products owing to end of patent rights. The concerns are further aggravated by couple of decisions announced by Indian courts (Nexavar® followed by long time pending battle of Gleevac®). These two decrees by Indian courts were not ruled in the favor of pharma giants; Bayer and Novartis respectively. Millions are dying in various part of world, owing to their inability to purchase the Elite Drugs, because of intellectual property rights. In this article various pros and cons have been discussed pertaining to generic medicines and patent fights of innovators world over.
23 December 2013

FORMULATION DEVELOPMENT AND IN VITRO CHARACTERIZATION OF SUSTAINED RELEASE PELLETS OF VENLAFAXINE HCl

About Author:
Anitha Nidadavolu
Department of Industrial Pharmacy
Chalapathi Institute of Pharmceutical Sciences
Chalapathi Nagar, Lam, Guntur-522034,
Andhra Pradesh, India.
anitha058@gmail.com
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Abstract:
In the present study, an attempt was made to develop and characterize once daily sustained release pellets of highly water soluble drug Venlafaxine Hydrochloride, which is an antidepressant of serotonin-nor epinephrine reuptake inhibitor (SNRI). Compatibility studies by FTIR spectroscopy observed Venlafaxine HCl was compatible with all the excipients used. These pellets were prepared in three stages. In drug loading stage (powder layering technique with pan coater), drug was loaded on non-pareil sugar spheres by using Mannitol, Microcrystalline powder (MCCP) as diluents and PVP K30 as binder. The concentration of Venlafaxine HCl was kept constant. Four preliminary batches of drug loaded pellets prepared by varying concentrations of disintegrant Crospovidone INF-10 (D1- D4) i.e. 1.5%, 3%, 4.5%, 6%. Optimized formulation was selected based on percentage yield, drug content (assay) and found D3- 4.5% as best. In barrier coating stage(wurster process with fluidized bed coater) drug loaded pellets of D3 were coated by different concentrations of film former HPMC E3 (B1- B3) i.e.4%, 6%, 8%. Among them, B2- 6% found as best. In SR coating stage (wurster process with fluidized bed coater) barrier pellets of B2 were coated by varying concentrations of release rate retarding polymer Ethyl cellulose EC 7 cps (S1- S4) i.e. 2%, 5%, 6%, 8%. These EC (S1- S4) formulations were characterized fordrug content (assay), particle size distribution, friability,flow properties, surface morphology (SEM) and dissolution profile.In vitro dissolution studies were carried out by USP dissolution apparatus Type-II and compared with innovator Effexor XR^®. Among all formulations S4(8%) was best, followed first order kinetics and found to release the drug over a sustained period of time up to 24 hrs. The release exponent (n values) for all found in the range of n > 1, indicated that the drug transport mechanism by super case-II transport. The optimized S4 formulation was found as pharmaceutically equivalent to innovator due to similarity (f2 =77.77) in drug release profile. As per ICH guidelines, accelerated stability studies conducted and there was no significant difference in physicochemical parameters (p < 0.05), indicated that the optimized S4 formulation was stable.
22 December 2013

INDOLE BASED ALKALOID IN CANCER: AN OVERVIEW

About Authors:
Ramit Singla¹, Arvind Negi¹*, Virendra Singh²
¹Centre for Chemical and pharmaceutical sciences, Central university of Punjab, Bathinda, India
²Department of Chemistry, National institute of technology, Jalandhar, India
*arvindnegi2301@gmail.com
17 December 2013

PHARMACOLOGICAL UPDATES OF PISTIA STRATIOTES (WATER LETTUCE/ JALAKUMBHI): A MINI REVIEW

About Authors:
Kuntal Pal¹, Sampat Kumar Kundu²
¹Faculty of Ayurveda, Institute of Medical Sciences, Rajiv Gandhi South Campus,
Banaras Hindu University, Barkachha, Mirzapur-231001
²Gurunanak Institute of Pharmaceutical Science & Technology
Sodepur, West Bengal.
sampatkundu001@gmail.com
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Abstract
World is running so first, at this moment medicines have to work to maintain the health of the people to give them power to stabilize them. Modern medicine is working from a decades or so, but many traditional systems of medicines also show some beneficial effects in that era. Likewise Kampo, Traditional Chinese Medicine(TCM), Ayurveda & Herbal Medicines. Those kind of medicines can give a patient resistant to protect the disease without less side effects. Pistia stratiotes is a plant which plays a commendable role in that era. It is used in different kind of disease which are described in this mini review.
16 December 2013

TO STUDY THE EFFICACY AND EFFECTS ON LIPID METABOLISM, ANTHROPOMETRY AND BLOOD PRESSURE OF COMBINATION TREATMENT WITH ARB+HCTZ AND ACES+HCTZ IN HYPERTENSIVE PATIENT

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15 December 2013

A NEW PROMISE: NEURAL TISSUE ENGINEERING USING NANOTECHNOLOGY

About Authors:
^1*Neeraj Kumar Lohani, ²Vachaspati Mishra,³Divakar Joshi
^1,2Department of Biotechnology, Institute of Biomedical Education and Research, Mangalayatan University, Beswan, Aligarh-Uttar Pradesh, india,
³MBPG College Haldwani Nainital Kumaun University Nainital Uttarakhand.
neerajlohani06@gmail.com
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12 December 2013

A PORTRAYAL OF A DRUG

About Authors:
Ashish Chauhan^*1, Pradeep Arora², Nisha Thakur³
^1,2Indian Pharmacopoeia Commission, Ministry of Health & Family Welfare, Govt. of India, Sector-23, Raj Nagar, Ghaziabad, NCR-201002 (India).
³Abhilashi Institute of Life Sciences, Ner Chock, Mandi, Himachal Pradesh
11 December 2013

POLYELECTROLYTES: AS A DRUG DELIVERY SYSTEM

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ABOUT AUTHORS:
Surya Pratap Singh^*, Meenakshi Sahetya¹, Mahaveer Prasad khichi^1*, Yogesh Yaduwanshi²
¹Department of pharmaceutics, Kota college of pharmacy
²Department of pharmacology, Kota college of pharmacy,
Rajasthan, India
*sp.kota91@gmail.com

ABSTRACT
The purpose of this paper is to focus on drug delivery system developing by such polyelectrolytes and most focused on targeting of drugs to specific sites have aroused as revolution in pharmaceutical field, thereby, giving rise to drug delivery systems. Polymers have gained much importance indrug delivery especially those which respond in some desired way to change in pH, temperature, electric or magnetic field. For this reason they are very frequently and extensively used as excipients in design and advancement of controlled and/or sustained release products. The scope of polymers used in dosage form design can be increased by several approaches such as modification of their chemical structure, by combining different polymers in physical mixtures or by formation of polymer-polymer associations such as polyelectrolyte complexes.
5 December 2013

PYRAZOLE AND ITS BIOLOGICAL ACTIVITY

ABOUT AUTHORS:
Vishwanadham Yerragunta*¹, Duggi.Suman¹, Kumara swamy¹, V.Anusha¹, Pratima Patil¹, M. Naresh²
Department of Pharmaceutical Chemistry,
¹Malla Reddy College of Pharmacy, Maisammaguda, Secunderabad-500014, A.P.
²Bharath Institute of Technology Pharmacy-Ibrahimpatnam, AP.
*vishwanadham.y@gmail.com
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ABSTRACT:
The aim of this review is to provide an overview of diverse pharmacological activities of pyrazole moiety. Pyrazole are well known and important nitrogen containing 5-membered heterocyclic compounds and various methods have been worked out for their synthesis. Pyrazole chemically known as 1, 2-diazole has become a popular topic due to its manifold uses. Numerous pyrazole derivatives have been found to possess a broad spectrum of biological activities, which stimulated the research activity in this field. Pyrazoles and its derivatives represent one of the most active classes of compounds, which possess wide range of biological activities like anti-bacterial, anti-convulsant, analgesic, anti-microbial, anti-inflammatory, ant diabetic, sedative anti-rheumatic, anticancer, and anti-tubercular activities. The purpose of this review was to collate literature work reported by researchers on pyrazole for their various pharmacological activities and also reported recent efforts made on this moiety.