A comparative study between melt granulation/compression and hot melt extrusion/injection molding for the manufacturing of oral sustained release thermoplastic polyurethane matrices.

During this project 3 techniques (twin screw melt granulation/compression (TSMG), hot melt extrusion (HME) and injection molding (IM)) were evaluated for the manufacturing of thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU)-based oral sustained release matrices, containing a high dose of the highly soluble metformin hydrochloride. Whereas formulations with a drug load between 0 and 70% (w/w) could be processed via HME/(IM), the drug content of granules prepared via melt granulation could only be varied between 85 and 90% (w/w) as these formulations contained the proper concentration of binder (i.e. TPU) to obtain a good size distribution of the granules. While release from HME matrices and IM tablets could be sustained over 24h, release from the TPU-based TSMG tablets was too fast (complete release within about 6h) linked to their higher drug load and porosity. By mixing hydrophilic and hydrophobic TPUs the in vitro release kinetics of both formulations could be adjusted: a higher content of hydrophobic TPU was correlated with a slower release rate. Although mini-matrices showed faster release kinetics than IM tablets, this observation was successfully countered by changing the hydrophobic/hydrophilic TPU ratio. In vivo experiments via oral administration to dogs confirmed the versatile potential of the TPU platform as intermediate-strong and low-intermediate sustained characteristics were obtained for the IM tablets and HME mini-matrices, respectively.