Encapsulation efficiency and in-vitro dissolution test of Nifedipine microcapsules coated with polyblend of poly(D-lactic acid) and polycaprolactone

Nifedipine is a drug that is commonly used in the treatment of hypertension and angina. This drug has a half-life only 2–4 h and has a low bioavailability, so it needs to be given in a gradual dose to be effective. The usual dose used is 20–40 mg every 8 h. This dosage is an unpleasant dose for the patient and a large potential for dose violations. Therefore, it is necessary to do a drug delivery system approach with continuous release. One of these approaches is the use of polyblend from biodegradable polymer such as poly (D-lactic acid) (PDLA) and polycaprolactone (PCL) in the microencapsulation of Nifedipine. In this experiment, the preparation of microcapsules used solvent evaporation method and Span 80 was used as surfactant and obtained the best encapsulation results in the composition of PCL: PDLA 8:2 (% w/w) with percentage of efficiency encapsulation 84.33 ± 1.58 %. The best drug release was obtained in the composition of 7: 2 (% w/w) with release of nifedipine by 10.743 mg (44.03 %).