Influence of active pharmaceutical ingredient structures on Hansen solubility parameters

Development of 3D printed mini-waffle shapes containing hydrocortisone for children's personalized medicine

Hydrocortisone is mainly used in the substitution treatment of adrenal insufficiency which results in a dysregulation of cortisol. Compounding of hydrocortisone capsules remains the only low-dose oral treatment suitable for the pediatric population. However, capsules often show non-compliance in mass and content uniformity. Three-dimensional printing offers the prospect of practising personalized medicine for vulnerable patients like children. The goal of this work is to develop low-dose solid oral forms containing hydrocortisone by hot-melt extrusion coupled with fused deposition modeling for the pediatric population. Formulation, design and processes temperatures were optimized to produce printed forms with the desired characteristics. Red mini-waffle shapes containing drug loads of 2, 5 and 8 mg were successfully printed. This new 3D design allow to release more than 80% of the drug in 45 minutes indicating a conventional release like the one obtained with capsules. Mass and content uniformity, hardness and friability tests complied with European Pharmacopeia specifications, despite the considerable challenge of the small dimensions of the forms. This study demonstrates that FDM can be used to produce innovative pediatric-friendly printed shapes of an advanced pharmaceutical quality to practice personalize medicine.

Experimental Examination of Solubility and Lipophilicity as Pharmaceutically Relevant Points of Novel Bioactive Hybrid Compounds

The important physicochemical properties of three novel bioactive hybrid compounds with different groups (-CH₃, -F and -Cl) were studied, including kinetic and thermodynamic solubility in pharmaceutically relevant solvents (buffer solutions and 1-octanol) as well as partition coefficient in system 1-octanol/buffer pH 7.4. The aqueous solubility of these chemicals is poor and ranged from 0.67 × 10^-4 to 1.98 × 10^-3 mol·L^-1. The compounds studied are more soluble in the buffer pH 2.0, simulating the gastrointestinal tract environment (by an order of magnitude) than in the buffer pH 7.4 modelling plasma of blood. The solubility in 1-octanol is significantly higher; that is because of the specific interactions of the compounds with the solvent. The prediction solubility behaviour of the hybrid compounds using Hansen's three-parameter approach showed acceptable results. The experimental solubility of potential drugs was successfully correlated by means of two commonly known equations: modified Apelblat and van't Hoff. The temperature dependencies of partition coefficients of new hybrids in the model system 1-octanol/buffer pH 7.4 as a surrogate lipophilicity were measured by the shake flask method. It was found that compounds demonstrated a lipophilic nature and have optimal values of partition coefficients for oral absorption. Bioactive assay manifested that prepared compounds showed antifungal activities equal to or greater than fluconazole. In addition, the thermodynamic aspects of dissolution and partition processes have been examined. Bioactive assay manifested that prepared compounds showed antifungal activities equal to or greater than the reference drug.

Fused deposition modeling 3D printing of solid oral dosage forms containing amorphous solid dispersions: How to elucidate drug dissolution mechanisms through surface spectral analysis techniques?

Many active principles belong to the second class of the Biopharmaceutics Classification System due to their low aqueous solubility. Elaboration of new solid oral forms by hot-melt extrusion and fused deposition modeling appears as a promising tool to increase the dissolution rate of these drugs. Indeed, hot-melt extrusion allows the amorphisation of drugs and forms with complex geometries are built by 3D printing. Therefore, the goal of this work is to enhance the dissolution rate of poorly soluble drugs using hot-melt extrusion coupled with fused deposition modeling. Four formulations containing Affinisol® 15LV, Kollidon® VA64 and a challenging amount of itraconazole (25% (wt.)) were successfully printed into forms of 20, 50 and 80% infill densities. Differential scanning calorimetry analysis has shown that itraconazole remained amorphous during 52 weeks. The drug release rate was highly improved compared to itraconazole in a crystalline form. The dissolution rate was influenced by the infill density and the polymer composition of printed forms which could modify respectively the surface to volume ratio and the distribution of the components in the printed forms. One formulation printed with 20% infill density even had a solubility profile similar to that of Sporanox®, the commercialized drug product in Belgium.