Quality and Pharmaceutical Equivalence Determinations of Commercially Available Amlodipine Besylate Immediate Release Tablets

Counterfeit and substandard drugs possess serious health risks. Regular quality screening is very important to ensure the standard and efficacy of pharmaceutical products. The study aimed to compare the quality of amlodipine besylate tablets available in the Bangladesh drug market and examine their physical and pharmaceutical equivalence. The various physico-chemical parameters such as diameter, shape, size, weight variation, thickness, hardness, loss on drying (LOD), friability, disintegration, dissolution, and assay have been determined according to the methods mentioned in the United States Pharmacopoeia (USP) and British Pharmacopoeia (BP). Four brands of amlodipine besylate were purchased from different local retail stores and coded as ALT1, AMT2, AMT3, and AST4 on the basis of their market share. All four brands met official USP specifications. Pharmaceutical equivalence was determined from the dissolution profile which gives acceptable difference (f1) and similarity (f2) factor values for all the brands compared with the benchmark brand for its highest market share. All the brands also met the USP criteria for assay of not less than 90.0% and not more than 110.0% of the labeled amount of amlodipine (C20H25N2O5Cl).

Comparison of Various Classification Techniques Using Different Data Mining Tools for Diabetes Diagnosis

In the absence of medical diagnosis evidences, it is difficult for the experts to opine about the grade of disease with affirmation. Generally many tests are done that involve clustering or classification of large scale data. However many tests could complicate the main diagnosis process and lead to the difficulty in obtaining the end results, particularly in the case where many tests are performed. This kind of difficulty could be resolved with the aid of machine learning techniques. In this research, we present a comparative study of different classification techniques using three data mining tools named WEKA, TANAGRA and MATLAB. The aim of this paper is to analyze the performance of different classification techniques for a set of large data. A fundamental review on the selected techniques is presented for introduction purpose. The diabetes data with a total instance of 768 and 9 attributes (8 for input and 1 for output) will be used to test and justify the differences between the classification methods. Subsequently, the classification technique that has the potential to significantly improve the common or conventional methods will be suggested for use in large scale data, bioinformatics or other general applications.

Isolated Endophytic Fungi from the Plant <i>Curcuma longa</i>and Their Potential Bioactivity—A Review

Endophytes (both fungi and bacteria) represent a treasure house for bioactive compounds such as anticancer, immunomodulatory, antioxidant, antiparasitic, insecticidal etc. for use in the pharmaceutical and agrochemical industries. Endophytic population is greatly influenced by climatic conditions and location where the host plant grows. Curcuma longa L. (Turmeric) is a medicinal plant belonging to the Zingiberaceae family that is usually used as spice and preservative. Traditionally it is used to treat various conditions and symptoms such as digestive disorders, arthritis, cardiovascular conditions, cancer, bacterial infections etc. In recent times, there have been different discoveries on endophytic fungi and their biological activity from C. longa. But there is no comprehensive review on endophytic fungi of C. longa. The aim of this review is to analyze the published report based on the endophytic fungi to provide for the first time an updated information about their isolation from different tissues, their biological activities including the phytochemistry of C. longa. This will lead the way to forecast the missing link for future research work.

Cytotoxic, Antimicrobial and Antioxidant Properties of <i>Commelina diffusa</i>Burm. F.

Commelina diffusa Burm. F. is a herbaceous tropical plant with different traditional medicinal uses. Present study is aimed to isolate the bioactive compounds from DCM-Methanol extract of the powdered whole plant of Commelina diffusa and to investigate the cytotoxic, antimicrobial and antioxidant activities of the crude extract and its twelve vacuum liquid chromatographic fraction (CD1-12). Vacuum Liquid Chromatography (VLC) was employed to isolate bioactive metabolites. The physicochemical properties of the isolated compound were examined and the molecular structure was elucidated by NMR spectroscopy.?Cytotoxic, antibacterial, antioxidant activities were evaluated following brine shrimp lethality bioassay, disc diffusion method and DPPH free radical scavenging assay respectively. The isolated compound was identified as steroid (stigmasterol) which had significant cytotoxic effect on vero cell line. The crude extract and its fractions (CD8-CD12) exhibited strong cytotoxicity in brine shrimp lethality bioassay having LC50 values 3.79, 9.19, 29.49, 16.60, 19.36, 44.58 μg/mL respectively. The crude extract showed mild to strong antibacterial activity. Fractions (CD5-CD12) showed mild to strong antibacterial activity against Escherichia coli in comparison with Kanamycin (standard). Strong antioxidant activities were found in crude extract (IC50 value 30.52 μg/ml), CD11 (IC50 value 39.27 μg/ml) and CD12 (IC50 value 19.50 μg/ml). The study suggests Commelina diffusa plant extract to have strong antioxidant and cytotoxic activity which is indicative of presence of compounds with broad spectrum of curative applications. One compound namely stigmasterol has been isolated from the plant.

Isolation of Bulk Amount of Piperine as Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) from Black Pepper and White Pepper (<i>Piper nigrum</i>L.)

In the pharmaceutical world the majority of the active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) have been obtained from the natural products. Piperine is such naturally occurring alkaloid which can be considered as major bioactive phytochemical having broad spectrum of pharmacological activities. It is obtained from the most valuable ethnomedicinal spices peppercorns i.e. black pepper and white pepper, which are the fruits of the Asian vine Piper nigrum L. Because of the widespread traditional uses of this medicinal compound, present article reveals a simple and effective isolation method of bulk piperine. The novelty of this investigation is to provide an idea for utilizing such natural method of large scale commercial piperine production as API drug in spite of chemical synthesis. Piperine was isolated in a pure crystal form and characterized by its melting point, X-Ray diffraction (XRD) studies and spectral data, including two-dimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (2D-NMR) spectroscopy. Chromatographic techniques like Thin Layer Chromatography (TLC) and High Performance Liquid Chromatography (HPLC) were applied to determine the purity of the yielded piperine. It was found that piperine yield from black pepper was within 2.5% - 3.0% and from white pepper within 4.0% - 4.5% and the purity of the yielded piperine was found to be up to 98.5% for black pepper and 98.2% for white pepper. Considering this yield value and purity it is indicated that, such effective isolation method can be successfully utilized for industrial large-scale production commercially. According to the result, it can be claimed that, as a natural product the isolated piperine can also be utilized as API drug like other expensive chemically synthesized piperine in different drug formulation.