Bionanocomposite systems based on montmorillonite and biopolymers for the controlled release of olanzapine.

Olanzapine (OLZ) is a drug that is used in the treatment of schizophrenia and other psychoses, and it belongs to the thienobenzodiazepine class. The OLZ molecule has low solubility decreasing bioavailability, but has high permeability in membrane biological being classified as a Class II drug substance according to the Biopharmaceutics Classification System. It was reported many side effects of administering OLZ orally. So, in order to increase the bioavailability of drug and possibly reducing some of side effects, this paper proposes a new material able to controllably release the drug in the body. To control the dissolution rate, this work proposes a system that incorporates the drug into montmorillonite (MMT) dispersed in a mixture of alginate (ALG) and xanthan gum (XG) biopolymers. The proposed hybrids and bionanocomposites were characterized by several physicochemical techniques, including XRD, IR-ATR, TG DTA, SEM-EDS and HPLC. The characterization data confirmed the intercalation of the OLZ into the MMT by the ion exchange process, as well as the interaction of the MMT-OLZ with the biopolymers. The release test, conducted under various pH conditions, showed that the proposed system exhibited a more controlled drug release than commercial tablets, indicating that the ALG-XG/MMT-OLZ bionanocomposite can act as a controlled release system for OLZ.