AIMThe present study deals with preparation of zidovudine loaded microparticle by counter ion induced aggregation method. During this study effect of polyacrylates and hypromellose polymers on release study were investigated.MATERIALS AND METHODSThe ion induced aggregated alginate based microparticles were characterized for surface morphology, particle size analysis, drug entrapment study, in-vitro study, Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) study.RESULTS AND DISCUSSIONThe result showed Eudragit RL-100 (ERL) based formulations had smoother surface as well as their mean particle sizes were found greater compared with Eudragit RS-100 (ERS) microparticles. Furthermore, drug entrapments were found to be more in ERL formulae as compared with ERS. RL3 released 101.05% drug over a period of 8(th) h and followed Higuchi profile and Fickian diffusion. Moreover, data obtained illustrated that, higher amount of quaternary ammonium group, alkali value, and glass transition temperature may be possible reason for improving permeability of ERL based formulations. It was also noticed, hyroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) K4M premium grade polymer sustained drug release more than HPMC K15M. In addition, drug-excipient interaction study was carried out by FTIR and DSC study.