Evaluation of chemically modified hydrophobic sago starch as a carrier for controlled drug delivery

The present investigation deals with the development of controlled release tablets of lamivudine using acetylated sago starch. The acetylated starch was synthesized with acetic anhydride in pyridine medium. The acetylated sago starch was tested for acute toxicity and drug–excipient compatibility study. The formulations were evaluated for physical characteristics like hardness, % friability, % drug content and weight variations. The in vitro release study showed that the optimized formulation exhibited highest correlation (R) value in the case of higuchi kinetic model and the release mechanism study proved that the formulation showed a combination of diffusion and erosion processes. There was a significant difference in the pharmacokinetic parameters (Tmax, Cmax, AUC, Vd, T1/2 and MDT) of the optimized formulation as compared to the marketed conventional tablet Lamivir® which proves the controlled release property of acetylated sago starch.