The objective of the present study is to design a prolonged release dosage form to be used for targeted and controlled release drug delivery. Preparation of mucoadhesive microspheres containing venlafaxine HCl helps in releasing small quantities of drug, advantage for treating of depressive disorders. Slowly dissolving polymers for sustaining the release may be suitable for long term therapy in controlled alleviation of clinical manifestation. Ethyl cellulose and Eudragit RS100 provide a potentially useful means of delivering drugs because they are stable, both physically and chemically amenable to preparation in large batches. However the present work is aimed to design and evaluate the mucoadhesive microspheres of Venlafaxine HCl. In this present work the mucoadhesive microspheres of venlafaxine HCl were prepared by employing 23factorial design by using Ethyl cellulose along with Eudragit RS100 and Hydroxy Propyl Methyl cellulose K4M. In this experimental model, our goal is to determine how the t80% of drug release and mucoadhesive characters can be affected by adjusting three parameters, concentration of polymers Ethyl cellulose, Eudragit RS100 & HPMC K4M. For each of these parameters, the levels will define for use in this 2-level experiment. In formulations, the low and high levels of Ethyl cellulose, EUDRAGIT RS100 and HPMC K4M were 750 mg and 1000 mg, 100 mg, 200 mg and 200 mg, 300 mg respectively were used. The drug polymer compatibility studies were carried out using FTIR. The stability studies were conducted for the optimized formulation. The optimized formulation exhibited high drug entrapment efficiency and the drug release was also sustained for more than 24 hours.
