An automated workstation for forced degradation of active pharmaceutical ingredients

Automated Integrated Forced Degradation and Drug-Excipient Compatibility Studies

An integrated high-throughput tool for forced degradation studies during pharmaceutical development is described. A series of experiments are conducted with the Symyx Technologies (Santa Clara, CA) Automated Forced Degradation System. The hardware and software of the workflow are described. Degradation libraries of stressed samples of liquid formulations of drug A were created, analyzed for room temperature solubility, and then replicates of each library were heated and sampled over time at 55, 70, and 85 °C to monitor for parent product degradation. Library arrays of first-order kinetic plots were generated, and predictions of room temperature stability were made. Several viable solution formulations were identified. (JALA 2005;10:374–80)

Discovery pharmaceutics--challenges and opportunities

Most pharmaceutical companies are now evaluating compounds for druglike properties early in the discovery process. The data generated at these early stages allow upfront identification of potential development challenges and thus selection of the best candidates for lead nomination. Most often, lead nomination candidates are selected based on pharmacological and toxicological data. However, many drugs in development suffer from poor biopharmaceutical properties due to suboptimal physiochemical parameters. The poor biopharmaceutical properties often lead to extended timelines and a higher cost of developing the compounds. To avoid these problems and choose the best compounds from a biopharmaceutical perspective, physicochemical parameters such as solubility, lipophilicity, and stability need to be evaluated as early as possible. Furthermore, the preformulation approaches used to evaluate the compounds for their pharmacokinetic and toxicological properties need to be optimized. This minireview summarizes some of the parameters and approaches that can be used to evaluate compounds in the early stages of drug discovery.

Drugs as materials: valuing physical form in drug discovery

Traditionally, potency and selectivity (and to some extent metabolism) have been the key parameters to consider in the process of discovering new drug candidates. Recently, heads of research and CEOs have been learning a new reality: drugs can move around the body and act at the molecular level, but the chemical and material properties of their physical form need to be identified and optimized for in vivo performance, reliable manufacture and the protection of intellectual property. This review discusses the challenge of pharmaceutical materials discovery, and suggests strategies for addressing the characterization and evaluation of physico-chemical and material properties in the drug discovery and development process.

A new approach to accelerated drug-excipient compatibility testing

The purpose of this study was to develop a method of qualitatively predicting the most likely degradants in a formulation or probing specific drug-excipient interactions in a significantly shorter time frame than the typical 1 month storage testing. In the example studied, accelerated storage testing of a solid dosage form at 50 degrees C, the drug substance SB-243213-A degraded via the formation of two oxidative impurities. These impurities reached a level of 1% PAR after 3 months. Various stressing methods were examined to try to recreate this degradation and in doing so provide a practical and reliable method capable of predicting drug-excipient interactions. The technique developed was able to mimic the 1-month's accelerated degradation in just 1 hr. The method was suitable for automated analysis, capable of multisample stressing, and ideal for use in drug-excipient compatibility screening.