Oral fast-dissolving drug delivery membranes prepared from electrospun polyvinylpyrrolidone ultrafine fibers

Oral fast-dissolving drug delivery membranes (FDMs) for poorly water-soluble drugs were prepared via electrospinning technology with ibuprofen as the model drug and polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) K30 as the filament-forming polymer and drug carrier. Results from differential scanning calorimetry, x-ray diffraction, and morphological observations demonstrated that ibuprofen was distributed in the ultrafine fibers in the form of nanosolid dispersions and the physical status of drug was an amorphous or molecular form, different from that of the pure drug and a physical mixture of PVP and ibuprofen. Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy results illustrated that the main interactions between PVP and ibuprofen were mediated through hydrogen bonding. Pharmacotechnical tests showed that FDMs with different drug contents had almost the same wetting and disintegrating times, about 15 and 8 s, respectively, but significantly different drug dissolution rates due to the different physical status of the drug and the different drug-release-controlled mechanisms. 84.9% and 58.7% of ibuprofen was released in the first 20 s for FDMs with a drug-to-PVP ratio of 1:4 and 1:2, respectively. Electrospun ultrafine fibers have the potential to be used as solid dispersions to improve the dissolution profiles of poorly water-soluble drugs or as oral fast disintegrating drug delivery systems.