Helicobacter pylori (H. pylori) infection is the leading cause of chronic peptic ulcer disease worldwide. Many treatment options are available to treat H. pylori infection. However, the eradication is still a challenge due to the poor bioavailability of the currently available formulations. To improve the efficacy of therapy, novel formulations are necessary. Proton pump inhibitors (PPIs) are already a part of the treatment regimen with antibiotics. P-glycoprotein (P-gp) inhibitor was reported to have increased the efficacy of antibiotic treatment in H. pylori infections. To make available the P-gp inhibitor and PPI on the intestinal mucosal surface we have formulated a gastroretentive drug delivery system (GRDDS) as an adjuvant therapy with antibiotics. The objective of this study is to simultaneously estimate pantoprazole (PAN) and piperine (PIP) by reverse-phase (RP) high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) method from the chitosan-based sodium alginate mucoadhesive beads utilizing the design of experiments (DOEs) methodology. The HPLC settings were optimized using DOEs software. The final optimized HPLC method used a hyperclone Octadecylsilane C18 column as the stationary phase and methanol: ammonium acetate at pH 4.5 (70:30 v/v) as the mobile phase. The flow rate was 0.9 ml/minute. The validation of the developed RP-HPLC method was done as per the International Conference on Harmonization (ICH) Q2(R1) guideline. The method was linear from 0.5 to 20 μg/ml for both PAN and PIP with an R2 value of 0.999 and 0.999, respectively. The validated RP-HPLC method showed specificity for both drugs despite interference from degradation products and other GRDDS excipients. The entrapment efficiency of the final formulation was determined to be 80%–85% for PAN and 60%–67% for PIP. The novelty and merit of the DOE-based method development are that it reduces the number of trials, thereby reducing reagent wastage, and is environmentally friendly suggested by the Green Analytical Procedure Index (GAPI) tool scoring six green, six yellow, and three red.
Key words: Box–Behnken design, GRDDS, pantoprazole, piperine, HPLC, H. pylori
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