Recent Investigations of Plant Based Natural Gums, Mucilages and Resins in Novel Drug Delivery Systems

Abstract:

All pharmaceutical dosage forms contain many additives besides the active ingredients to assist manufacturing and to obtain the desired effect of the pharmaceutical active ingredients. The advances in drug delivery have simultaneously urged the discovery of novel excipients which are safe and fulfill specific functions and directly or indirectly influence the rate and extent of release and /or absorption. The plant derived gums and mucilages comply with many requirements of pharmaceutical excipients as they are non-toxic, stable, easily available, associated with less regulatory issues as compared to their synthetic counterpart and inexpensive; also these can be easily modified to meet the specific need. Most of these plant derived gums and mucilages are hydrophilic and gel- forming in nature. Recent trend towards the use of plant based and natural products demands the replacement of synthetic additives with natural ones. Many plant derived natural materials are studied for use in novel drug delivery systems, out of which polysaccharides, resins and tannins are most extensively studied and used. This review discusses about the majority of these plant-derived polymeric compounds, their sources, extraction procedure, chemical constituents, uses and some recent investigations as excipients in novel drug delivery systems.

KEYWORDS: Plants, gums, mucilage, sustained release, novel drug delivery systems