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PONE-D-20-30735

Formulation, in vitro Characterization and Optimization of Taste-Masked Orally Disintegrating Co-trimoxazole Tablet by Direct Compression

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tafere,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

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Based on the recommendation of reviewer, the manuscript needs extensive revision before consider for publication.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by Dec 07 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Girish Sailor

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and

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2. Please provide additional details regarding participant consent. In the ethics statement in the Methods and online submission information, please ensure that you have specified whether consent was informed.

3. In the Methods section, please provide the product number and any lot numbers of the materials purchased from chemical companies for your study.

4. In your Methods section, please provide additional information about the participant recruitment method and the demographic details of your participants. Please ensure you have provided sufficient details to replicate the analyses such as: a) the recruitment date range (month and year),  b) a table of relevant demographic details, c) a statement as to whether your sample can be considered representative of a larger population, d) a description of how participants were recruited, and e) descriptions of where participants were recruited and where the research took place.

5. In the Methods section, please provide detailed methods of taste masking by solid dispersion used in your study, including but not limited to preparation, solvents and ratios used, temperature and time, yield, quality, characterization, other ingredients/compounds included in the final extract, and confirmation the targeted compound was extracted.

6. Please provide a sample size and power calculation in the Methods, or discuss the reasons for not performing one before study initiation.

7.Thank you for stating the following in the Acknowledgments Section of your manuscript:

[My great acknowledgement also goes to Adigrat University for sponsoring my postgraduate

study and Mekelle University for sponsoring my thesis research]

We note that you have provided funding information that is not currently declared in your Funding Statement. However, funding information should not appear in the Acknowledgments section or other areas of your manuscript. We will only publish funding information present in the Funding Statement section of the online submission form.

Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows:

 [The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.]

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

8. Please amend your list of authors on the manuscript to ensure that each author is linked to an affiliation. Authors’ affiliations should reflect the institution where the work was done (if authors moved subsequently, you can also list the new affiliation stating “current affiliation:….” as necessary).

9. Please amend either the abstract on the online submission form (via Edit Submission) or the abstract in the manuscript so that they are identical.

10. Please ensure that you refer to Figure 3.14 and 3.15 in your text as, if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the figure.

11. Please include a copy of Table 4.4, 4.10, 4.11, 4.14 and 4.16 which you refer to in your text on page 17, 24, 26, 28 and 29.

12. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 3.4, 3.10, 3.11, 3.13, 3.14, 3.16 and 3.17 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table.

13. Please upload a copy of Figure 4.14 and 4.15, to which you refer in your text on page 33. If the figure is no longer to be included as part of the submission please remove all reference to it within the text.

14. Please include a caption for figure Figure 4.14 and 4.15.

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Partly

Reviewer #2: Partly

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: abbreviations used in abstract are confusing and must be written in full form (TMP & KN).

Referencing in text is not proper. You have used numbering but many times you have written name of authors with year in text.

Repeated use of make and model of instruments must be avoided.

Why used 0.1N HCl as dissolution medium.

Where drug dissolution will take place, in mouth or stomach.

Readings of hardness and friability are not showing good correlation.

Reviewer #2: The premise of the paper is ok. But the authors need to take a hard look at the paper and make it crisp and to the point. Review comments have been added in the paper.

The authors are advised to get the paper copy edited.

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6. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

[NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment files.]

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-20-30735_reviewer.pdf

Formulation, in vitro Characterization and Optimization of Taste-Masked Orally Disintegrating Co-trimoxazole Tablet by Direct Compression

PONE-D-20-30735R1

Dear Dr. Tafere,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org.

If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Girish Sailor

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #1: All comments have been addressed

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

**********

4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: The authors have tried to address all comments. It would be best if they try to truncate the document by reducing the number of unnecessary tables and figures and definitions. These may be added in the supplementary appendix.

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7. PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No