Bioequivalence Assessment of Nabumetone Tablets in Healthy Korean Volunteers

This study was performed to evaluate the bioequivalency between the Osmetone$^{TM}$ Tablet (Myeongmoon Pharm. Co., Ltd.) as a test formulation and the Relafen$^{TM}$ Tablet (Handok Pharm. Co., Ltd.) as a reference formulation. Twenty-four healthy male volunteers were administered the formulations by the randomized Latin square crossover design, and the plasma samples were determined by a high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC) with Ultra-Violet (UV) detector. AUC$_t$, C$_{max}$ and T$_{max}$ were obtained from the time-plasma concentration curves, and log-transformed AUC$_t$ and C$_{max}$ and log-untransformed T$_{max}$ values for two formulations were compared by statistical tests and analysis of variation. AUC$_t$ was determined to be 897.8${\pm}$431.1 ug.hr/ml for the reference formulation and 902.3${\pm}$408.4 ug.hr/ml for the test formulation. The mean values of C$_{max}$ for the reference and test formulations were 24.2${\pm}$8.9 and 24.0${\pm}$9.5 ug/ml, respectively. The AUC$_t$ and C$_{max}$ ratios of the reference Relafen$^{TM}$ Tablet to the test Osmetone$^{TM}$ Tablet were +5.01% and -0.83%, respectively, showing that the mean differences were satisfied the acceptance criteria within 20%. The results from analysis of variance for logtransformed AUC$_t$ and C$_{max}$ indicated that sequence effects between groups were not exerted and 90% confidence limits of the mean differences for AUC$_t$ and C$_{max}$ were located in ranges from log 0.80 to log 1.25, satisfying the acceptance criteria of the KFDA bioequivalence. The Osmetone$^{TM}$ Tablet as the test formulation was considered to be bioequivalant to the Relafen$^{TM}$ Tablet used as its reference formulation, based on AUC$_t$ and C$_{max}$ values.