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Discovery and Basic Research

Category: Poster Abstract

(M1230-04-24) A Novel Electrospinning System to Fabricate Bi-axial Nanofibers for Developing a Floating Pharmaceutical Dosage Form

Monday, October 23, 2023
12:30 PM – 1:30 PM ET


Purpose: Electrospinning is a viable and versatile technique for creating ultrathin fibers, and considerable progress has been made in the development of electrospun nanofibers (NFs). Despite the potential applications of biaxial NFs, there has been no successful attempt to generate them until now. Using our in-house Xspin-MaGIC technology, we formulated biaxial fibers containing Curcumin and Ritonavir model drugs. We employed a design of experiment (DoE) approach and the custom design platform in JMP to optimize the electrospinning process and generate various sizes of biaxial fiber diameters. Our goal was to create biaxial fibers that would release the drug immediately upon dissolution while retaining the floating and sustaining properties of the rest of the fibers.

Methods: Biaxial electrospinning was performed using Nano/Microfiber Electrospinning System (Texas Material Institute) using a MaGIC nozzle (shown in Figure 1) on a setup comprising one syringe pump and a high-voltage power supply. Biaxial NFs were prepared from Eudragit® S100 (ES100) and Eudragit® EPO (EPO) to encapsulate Ritonavir and Curcumin, respectively. The overall goal of optimization was to obtain a significantly low biaxial fiber diameter and distribution, defined as response variables. The controllable processing parameters, defined as factors included flow rate (1 to 2 mL/h), inner needle diameter (18, 14 gauge), applied voltage (15 to 25 KV), and distance between the tip of the needle and the foil surface (20 to 25 cm). The appropriate range of values for each factor was predetermined in our preliminary experiments. Large, intermediate, small ,and customized fibers were chosen for successive tests. The compatibility of the fibers ingredients was verified with Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy and Differential Calorimetry investigations, and thermogravimetric analysis was used to confirm the stability of the fibers. The in-vitro release of both drugs in a stomach medium at pH 1.2 was measured from selected biaxial fibers in triplicate.

Results: Our results show that biaxial fibers were successfully prepared with sizes ranging from 1000 nm to 2200 nm as in Figure 2. The gap distance between the electrospinning needle and the foil collector, and the applied voltage were found to be the main controlling parameters in determining the resulting fiber size. The FT-IR and DSC studies confirmed the compatibility of the fiber ingredients of all chosen biaxial fibers. Thermogravimetric analysis verified the stability of the fibers. The in-vitro release data of Ritonavir from the prepared Biaxial fibers showed slow release (˂40%) in pH 1.2 over 5 days, while Curcumin showed burst release of > 80% in the first 2 h from all selected biaxial fibers as depicted in Figure 3.

Conclusion: In conclusion, stable and efficient biaxial fibers were successfully created for the oral delivery of multiple drugs. The optimized process conditions derived from the DoE approach allowed us to control the size of the biaxial fibers, and our proposed method proved to be particularly suitable for preparing floating and immediately releasing biaxial fibers.

Acknowledgements:The authors declare no conflict of interest. The authors would like to acknowledge support from the Egyptian government mission authority.

Figure 1 The schematic images of Magic electrospinning system.

Figure 2 Fit model analysis for size prediction.

Figure 3 Cumulative drug release of ritonavir and curcumin from electrospun fibers vs. time.