The purpose of the research work was to develop mucoadhesive drug delivery system of antihypertensive drug Valsartan by ionotropic gelation technique. In order to prolong the gastric residence time and increase the overall bioavailability of the drug from dosage form. The Microbeads were prepared by varying the concentration of sodium alginate and Sodiumcarboxymethylcellulose using calcium chloride as cross linking agent. The drugpolymer compatibility was studied by FTIR studies. The prepared Microbeads were evaluated for swelling ratio, particle size, and drug entrapment efficacy, scanning electron microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, mucoadhesion study and in vitro release study. A 2-factor, 2-level full factorial design (22) was employed for optimization of Valsartan beads with Sodium Alginate amount (%, X1) and polymers (SCMC%, X2) as the prime selected independent variables, which were varied at 2 different levels (low and high). The effect of formulation variables on the response variables were statistically evaluated by using a commercially available software package Design-Expert® version 8.0.1. The mean particle size increases with increasing the polymer concentration. The drug entrapment efficacy for all formulation was found to be 65.38%-77.54%. The mucoadhesion test result reveled that as the concentration of mucoadhesive polymer decreased, mucoadhesion of beads also decreased. SEM results revealed that all beads prepared were spherical in shape that indicating uniform distribution of drug in polymer network. In vitro release studies were carried out in phosphate buffer pH 6.8. The optimized formulation shows the controlled drug release
