Changing the formulation of propranolol hydrochloride medication necessitates varifying the shelf-life of the new blend.

A lot of work in the pharmaceutical industry nowadays is aimed towards improving the bioavailability of drugs.  The problem is easy to see.  If you take a pill and metabolize the entire thing immediately, the level of drug in your bloodstream spikes up to a very high value and then decreases along some (typically exponential) curve.  One way of improving the situation is to stabilize the pharmacokinetics such that the drug is not metabolized at once, but will last for hours, levelling off the time profile of the drug level in the bloodstream.  An example of this kind of work is given in this paper outlining the development of “sustained release matrix tablets of anti-hypertensive drug propranolol hydrochloride.”  Of course, any time a drug formulation is modified, it’s stability needs to be verified in the stability chamber.

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