Evaluation of strain-induced hydrophobicity of pharmaceutical blends and its effect on drug release rate under multiple compression conditions.

Objective: The purpose of this study was to investigate the effect of mechanical shear on hydrophobicity of pharmaceutical powder blends as a function of composition and particle size, and to determine the impact on drug release from tablets.

Methods: Four powder formulations were subjected to three different shear strain conditions (40 rev, 160 rev, and 640 rev) in a controlled shear environment operating at a shear rate of 80 rpm. A total of 12 blends were tested for hydrophobicity. Subsequently, sheared blends were compressed into tablets at 8 kN and 12 kN in a rotary tablet press. During tablet compression, powder samples were collected after the feed frame and their hydrophobicity was again measured.

Results: Results indicated that increase in shear strain could significantly increase hydrophobicity, predominantly as an interacting function of blend composition. Blends with both colloidal silica and magnesium stearate (MgSt) were found to show higher hydrophobicity with shear than other blends. Additional shear applied by the tablet press feed frame was found to change the powder hydrophobicity only in the absence of MgSt.

Conclusions: Studies showed that the drug release rates dropped with shear more for the blends with both colloidal silica and MgSt than the other blends. Furthermore, the rate of drug release dropped with a decrease in particle size of the main excipient. Surprisingly, the relationship between the relative increase in hydrophobicity and a corresponding drop in the drug release rate was not found when either MgSt or colloidal silica was mixed alone in the blends.