Objective:Oral slow and sustained release drug delivery system can release their drug content with a controlled manner,producing a desirable blood serum level,reduction in drug toxicity and improving the patient compliance by prolonging dosing intervals.The major drawback of orally administered drug like diltiazem as a calcium channel blocker for the treatment of angina pectoris,arrhythmia and hypertension.Its has higher aqueous solubility and shorter elimination half-life.Methods:To overcome these drawbacks associated with diltiazem,an attempt has been made to develop a sustained release dosage form of diltiazem embedded alginate microbeads by ionotropic gelation technique employing various concentrations of polymer and keeping the drug concentration constant.Results:The beads were characterized for its particle size,drug content and in vitro release studies. The results revealed that the surface adhering drug was found to release immediately and a steady state of release was obtained up to 12 h from all the batches.The results indicated there was an inverse relationship between the concentration of alginate and drug release.The drug release was found to follow non-fickian diffusion obeying first order kinetics.Conclusion:The developed alginate microbeads offered a sustained release of diltiazem. Hence,the formulated microbeads were found to be potential,cost effective,possess satisfactory in vitro release studies. Objective: Oral slow and sustained release drug delivery system can release their drug content with a controlled manner, producing a desirable blood serum level, reduction in drug toxicity and improving the patient compliance by prolonging dosing intervals. Major resistance of orally drug like diltiazem as a calcium channel blocker for the treatment of angina pectoris, arrhythmia and hypertension. Its has higher aqueous solubility and shorter elimination half-life. Methods: To overcome these drawbacks associated with diltiazem, an attempt has been made to develop a sustained release dosage form of diltiazem embedded alginate microbeads by ionotropic gelation technique employing various concentrations of polymer and keeping the drug concentration constant. Results: The beads were characterized for its particle size, drug content and in vitro release studies. The results revealed that the surface adhering drug was found to release immediately and a steady state of release was obtained up to 12 h from all the batches. The results presented there was an inverse relationship between the concentration of alginate and drug release. The drug release was found to follow non-fickian diffusion obeying first order kinetics. Contact: The developed alginate microbeads offered a sustained release of diltiazem. Therefore, the formulated microbeads were found to be potential, cost effective, possession satisfactory in vitro release studies.