The oral route is considered as the most promising route of drug delivery. Effective oral drug delivery may depend upon the factors such as gastric emptying process, G I transit time of dosage form, drug release from the dosage form and site of absorption of drugs. The gastro retentive drug delivery systems retains in the stomach and assist in improving the oral sustained delivery of drugs that have an absorption window in a particular region of the gastro intestinal tract. These systems help in continuously releasing the drug before it reaches the absorption window, thus ensuring optimal bioavailability. Floating tablets containing Venlafaxine Hydrochloride were prepared by wet granulation technique using varying concentrations of polymers with sodiumbicarbonate. It was found that gastro retention time of Venlafaxine Hydrochloride can be increased by formulating it in a floating dosage form using optimum amount of HPMC, sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. The floating tablets were evaluated for uniformity of weight, hardness, friability, drug content, invitro buoyancy and dissolution studies. The produced floating tablets exhibited good floating time and controlled drug release over a period of 8 hrs. It was concluded that floating tablet with good flow property and controlled release property can be obtained by optimizing amount of HPMC, sodium bicarbonate and citric acid. Among these formulations of Venlafaxine HCL, F12 showed maximum release and sustained the action for the period and proved to be best.
