New Easily Swallowed Tablets with Slippery Coating for Valsartan

Swallowing difficulties (dysphagia) is a common problem in about 50% of the population making a tablet ingestion unpleasant experience for many people, especially pediatrics, geriatrics, and patients who can't tolerate drinking water or in the case of unavailability of water. Thirty-five valsartan oroslippery tablets (OSTs) formulas along with eight blanks (drug-free) OSTs formulas were prepared by the application of a special coat on the tablet surface, which hydrates quickly upon contact with saliva offering an easy slipperiness of the tablet as an intact form with a good taste masking effect without drinking water. The prepared OSTs were optimized for two types of variables related to the core and coat and evaluated for their physical properties in addition to the in-vitro and in-vivo evaluation. In this study, a new oroslippery technology can be applied to overcome swallowing difficulties as a suitable alternative to buccal, sublingual and orodispersible tablet (ODTs) by avoiding some of their disadvantages such as limitations in drug and dose selection, taste masking difficulties, in addition to the friability, hygroscopicity and light sensitivity in ODTs.