The purpose of this work was to develop hollow calcium pectinate beads for floating-pulsatile release of ofloxacin intended for chronopharmacotherapy. Floating pulsatile concept was applied to increase the gastric resi-dence of the dosage form having lag phase followed by a burst release. A controlled release system designed to increase its residence time in the stomach without contact with the mucosa was achieved through the preparation of floating drug delivery system by rate controlled drug delivery approach. To overcome limitations of various app-roaches for imparting buoyancy, hollow/porous beads were prepared by simple process of acid-base reaction du-ring ionotropic crosslinking. The floating beads provided expected two-phase release pattern with initial lag time during floating in acidic medium followed by rapid pulse release in phosphate buffer. The floating beads obtained were porous (38% porosity), hollow with bulk density.
Keywords: Calcium pectinate beads, Chronotherapy, Buoyancy, Floating-pulsatile drug delivery