Author(s): Kiran Dhakane
Taste is an important factor in the development of dosage form. In the formulation for pediatric & geriatric, bed ridden & non-cooperative patients the main challenge to the compounding pharmacist is to mask the taste of obnoxious and bitter drugs, result is patient not receiving the optimal therapeutic value of their medication. Previously the attitude of “Worse the taste of medicine, better the cure” was observed, but now-a-days several approaches of masking the bitter taste have been developed. To overcome this problem so many techniques are available to mask the bitter taste of drugs. These techniques are not only serves as to mask the taste of drug as well as to enhance the bioavailability of drug dosage form. Commonly used techniques that are adopted for large scale production of pharmaceutical dosage form are use of flavors, coating of drug particle with inert materials, by formation of inclusion complexes, by Molecular complexes of drug with other chemicals, Microencapsulation, Multiple Emulsions, Prodrugs ,using liposome’s, Dispersion coating and Ion Exchange Resin approach. The present review attempts to give a brief account of different technologies of taste masking with respect to dosage form and novel methods of evaluation of taste masking effect.