Enhanced curcumin solubility in epichlorohydrin engineered β-Cyclodextrin copolymer for gastric maladies

The present work relates to a β-cyclodextrin based drug delivery system with epichlorohydrin as cross-linking agent, with higher binding efficiency of the drug curcumin and enhanced solubility of the curcumin in complex form when simulated in gastric fluid and increased sustained release of curcumin from complex for 2 h to act in gastric region. Although cross-linking with epichlorohydrin (EPC) is a process studied long time ago, however its use as a gastric solubility enhancer for curcumin has been studied for the first time. The synthesized polymer was well characterized by FT-IR, SEM, XRD, TGA and particle size analysis. The polymer enhanced the water solubility of curcumin by ∼ 800–850 times and the gastric solubility was increased by ∼ 1400–1500 times and acted as a sustained release system as verified by the pepsin inhibition studies which makes it a potential drug carrier for gastric specific drug targeting that can be a promising treatment for gastritis and gastric ulcers.