Volume :
3
Issue :
2
Abstract :
Quality control is a step taken to make sure that a company’s products or services are of sufficiently high quality in accordance with established acceptable limits. Generally, the term quality applied to drug and drugs products including all factors which are contributing directly or indirectly to the safety, efficacy, purity and reliability of the pharmaceutical products or services. This research was conducted with the aim of analyzing and comparing the quality and physicochemical properties of three different brands of paracetamol tablets produced by company A, B and C which are dispensed in legal and illegal dispensaries in Gondar town, North West Ethiopia. The tablets were evaluated and compared experimentally by measuring hardness, friability, weight variation, disintegration time, dissolution time and assay (percent label claim) for active ingredient content. The study showed that tablet manufactured in company B which is dispensed in both legal and illegal dispensaries failed to pass the friability test. The tablet manufactured from company A which is dispensed in both legal and illegal dispensaries did not meet the British Pharmacopeia (BP) specification for assay of active ingredient content, disintegration and dissolution tests. Except the hardness test, where paracetamol tablets failed to be crushed, company C paracetamol dispensed in legal dispensaries meet the specification set by USP and BP. Generally illegally dispensed paracetamol tablets failed to comply with friability specification unlike the legally dispensed paracetamol tablets indicating the impact of storage condition on the quality indicators of paracetamol.