Taste masked thin films printed by jet dispensing.

Taste masking of bitter active substances is an emerging area in the pharmaceutical industry especially for paediatric/geriatric medications. In this study we introduce the use of jet dispensing as a taste masking technology by printing mucosal thin films of three model bitter substances, Cetirizine HCl, Diphenylhydramine HCl and Ibuprofen. The process was used to dispense aqueous drugs/polymer solutions at very high speed where eventually the drugs were embedded in the polymer matrix. The in vivo evaluation of jet-dispensed mucosal films showed excellent taste masking for drug loadings from 20 to 40%. Jet dispensing was proved to make uniform, accurate and reproducible thin films with excellent content uniformity.