Taste masking potential of bitter drugs: A Review

Abstract

Taste masking of liquid formulation present a major challenge because the majority of pediatric Preparations are syrups and suspensions. Taste is a critical factor in development of oral dosage form. Taste masking is important for bitter drugs to improve the patient compliance especially in the pediatric and geriatric populations. The field of taste masking of active pharmaceutical ingredients (API) has been continuously evolving with varied technologies and new excipients. Two approaches are commonly utilized to overcome the bad taste of the drug. The first includes reduction of drug solubility in the saliva and second approach is to alter the ability of the drug to interact with taste receptor. Conventional taste masking techniques such as the use of sweeteners, amino acids and flavoring agents alone are often inadequate in masking the taste of highly bitter drugs. The recent techniques of taste masking are dispersion coating, granulation, solid dispersions, inclusion complexation, ion exchange resin approach, mass extrusions technique, spray drying, microencapsulation, liposomes, prodrugs, salt formation, adsorption, wet spherical agglomerations, multiple emulsions, gel formation, effervescent technique and continuous multipurpose melt technology. Evaluation of taste concealed formulation is done by panel testing, measurement of frog taste nerve response, multichannel taste sensor and spectrophotometric method.