ABSTRACT
This chapter presents the usual applications of alginates as potential excipients in various kinds of pharmaceutical dosage forms. Substances, which are not pharmacologically active as drugs or pro-drugs but are used in the formulation of pharmaceutical products are called as pharmaceutical excipients. Amongst these, alginates are one of the popular natural polysaccharide groups of alginic acid widely used as pharmaceutical excipients in numerous pharmaceutical applications including sustained drug releasing systems, biomucoadhesive dosage forms, colon-specific drug releasing systems, protein, and peptide delivery systems, gene delivery systems, etc. Alginates are a high molecular weight natural polymeric group of polysaccharide nature. Biocompatibilities, as well as immunogenicity of the polymeric systems, are the two vital concerns for the successful applications as carriers for the drug delivery applications. Alginates, a group of alginic acid salts, are the naturally derived polysaccharides mainly extracted from various species of kelp.
