Numerical Modeling of Drug Release from HPMC Carriers with Erosion

Abstract

Numerical modeling of drug release kinetics from hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) carriers is investigated. Recently a comprehensive model describing the controlling processes of this kinetics (water uptake, drug diffusion and carrier swelling) was proposed [1, 2]. An appropriate Finite Element (FE) approach to solving the arisen highly nonlinear model problem with moving boundary conditions was also developed. An improved variant of the above model for quantitative prediction of drug release kinetics, accounting the effect of polymer matrix erosion, is created. The model validation is performed fitting the numerical results to experimental data for two drugs (Trimetazidine K4M and Molsidomine K15M) under different tablet dimensions, release media, initial drug loading, and carriers’ viscosity grade.