Research in natural polymeric materials has witnessed growing interest and attention. This is attributable to a number of factors which include their relative abundance, low cost, and biodegrable and eco-firendly profiles. This article reviews the current applications of natural polymeric materials in pharmaceutical formulations. The pharmaceutical applications of some of the traditional and commercially available natural polymers were discussed. Emerging potential pharmaceutical excipients of natural origins were also discussed. The increasing research interests in this group of materials are indications of their increasing importance. It is believed that as technology and testing techniques advance, more understanding of their physicochemical nature would be gained that can enable them to be tailored for wider Pharmaceutical applications than their synthetic counterparts.

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The extensive supply of poor quality and/or counterfeit drug products in many developing countries has made it vital to frequently carry out suitable tests to assess bioequivalence (BE) in a cost-effective manner. This study was intended to assess the pharmaceutical equivalence and dissolution profile of amlodipine 5mg tablets marketed in Jos and Kaduna metropolis. Ten brands of Amlodipine 5mg tablets were obtained from different community pharmacies and evaluated for different quality control parameters such as percent drug content, friability, hardness, thickness, weight uniformity, disintegration time, and dissolution. The results showed that brands F and I failed the test for percent drug content while the rest of the brands passed it. In addition, all the brands passed the disintegrationand friability test while Brands C, F and I did not pass the hardness test. The dissolution profiles of all the brands were similar to the innovator brand at pH 6.8, whereas at pH 1.2, only four brands (B, E, H and I) had similar dissolution profile to the innovator. This study serves to justify for the assessment of in vitro parameters of commercially available amlodipine generics which may aid the prescribers’ decision making. Keywords: Amlodipine; Jos; Tablet properties, Dissolution profile

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