The objective of present investigation was to prepare and evaluate a floating pulsatile drug delivery system of metoprolol tartrate. The prepared floating pulsatile delivery system consisted of three different parts: a core tablet, containing the active ingredient, an erodible outer shell and a top cover buoyant layer. The rapid release core tablet (RRCT) was prepared by using superdisintegrants along with active ingredient. Dry coating of optimized RRCT was done by using different grades of hydroxy propyl methyl cellulose (HPMC) E5, E15, and E50 and upper most buoyant layer was prepared with HPMC K15M and sodium bicarbonate. Developed formulations were evaluated for their physical characteristics, drug content, in vitro disintegration time, in vitro drug release profile (lag time), floating lag time, floating time and in vivo X-ray study. On the basis of these evaluation parameters it was found that optimized floating pulsatile release formulation (FPRT) F9 showed floating lag time of 4 min, floating time of 12 hrs and release lag time of 6 hrs. The F9 formulation showed compliance with chronotherapeutic objective of hypertension.
