Co-amorphous Systems of Sinomenine with Platensimycin or Sulfasalazine: Physical Stability and Excipient-Adjusted Release Behavior

Breaking barriers: enhancing solubility and dissolution of efonidipine using co-amorphous formulations

The study aims to enhance the solubility and dissolution characteristics of efonidipine hydrochloride ethanolate (EFD), an antihypertensive drug, through the co-amorphous approach. Hypertension is a prevalent chronic condition characterized by consistently elevated blood pressure. Efonidipine, a BCS class II drug, has high permeability but low solubility, limiting its therapeutic effectiveness. Amorphization, which disrupts the crystal lattice of crystalline medications, can significantly enhance drug solubility and dissolution rates. Co-amorphous systems of EFD were prepared using solvent evaporation, ball milling, and liquid-assisted grinding methods. The drug and co-former were used in a different ratio, a stoichiometric proportion known for forming stable amorphous phases. The in vitro dissolution of the co-amorphous form was evaluated and compared with the pure crystalline form of EFD. The co-amorphous system of EFD with benzoic acid demonstrated significantly higher dissolution rates in vitro compared to the pure drug. PXRD analysis confirmed the transformation from a crystalline to an amorphous state, indicated by the disappearance of sharp peaks characteristic of the crystalline form. The resultant co-amorphous system exhibited dissolution properties. The co-amorphous approach effectively improved the solubility and dissolution of efonidipine hydrochloride ethanolate. Benzoic acid, as a co-former, facilitated the formation of a stable amorphous phase, thereby enhancing the drug's dissolution rate. The developed a co-amorphous system of EFD with benzoic acid, significantly enhancing its dissolution characteristics. PXRD analysis confirmed the amorphous nature and improved stability of the co-amorphous form, indicating its potential for better therapeutic efficacy in hypertension management.

A drug-drug co-amorphous system for highly improved solubility of breviscapine: an experimental and computational study

Drug-drug co-amorphous systems are a promising approach to improve the aqueous solubility of poorly water-soluble drugs. This study explores the combination of breviscapine (BRE) and matrine (MAT) form an amorphous salt, aiming to synergistically enhance the solubility and dissolution of BRE. In silico analysis of electrostatic potential and local ionization energy were conducted on BRE-MAT complex to predict the intermolecular interactions, and solvent-free energies were calculated using thermodynamic integration and density functional theory. The co-amorphous mixture, prepared by solvent evaporation, was characterized using various analytical techniques, including polarized microscopy, differential scanning calorimetry, and powder X-ray diffraction, confirming its amorphous nature. Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and molecular dynamic simulations revealed strong hydrogen bonding, with a proton transfer from the carboxyl group of BRE to the tertiary amine nitrogen of MAT. The resulting co-amorphous salt demonstrated substantial solubility improvement (> 8000-fold in water) and enhanced in vitro dissolution of BRE. The study also confirmed that the co-amorphous salt maintained physical stability at 40 °C and 75% relative humidity over 6 months. These findings provide a viable strategy for developing drug-drug co-amorphous formulations to enhance solubility and stability, with significant potential for pharmaceutical applications.

Resistant starch grafted cerium-sulfasalazine infinite coordination polymers synergistically remold intestinal metabolic microenvironment for inflammatory bowel disease therapy

Inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) is a chronic gastrointestinal disease which is closely related with the overproduced reactive oxygen species (ROS), increased pro-inflammatory cytokines and disordered intestinal microbes. However, current therapeutic methods usually ignored the interrelation among the pathogenesis, and mainly focused on a single factor, inducing clinical outcomes unsatisfied. Herein, biocompatible infinite coordination polymers of drugs (Ce-SASP-RS ICPs) composed of Ce ions, FDA-approved drug sulfasalazine (SASP) and natural ingredient resistant starch (RS) were developed for synergistic treatment of IBD. The proper Ce3+/Ce4+ ratio in Ce-SASP-RS ICPs can endow them with SOD-like activities, POD-like activities and •OH scavenging ability, which guarantee Ce-SASP-RS ICPs to simultaneously kill bacteria and maintain ROS balance through cascade reactions. Owing to the recovered redox balance microenvironment, SASP in Ce-SASP-RS ICPs can better play their anti-inflammatory function. Moreover, benefitting from the recovered metabolic balance of ROS and inflammatory cytokines in colon, resistant starch can also function better in modifying gut microbiota through generating short-chain fatty acids. Collectively, Ce-SASP-RS ICPs can synergistically restore intestinal metabolic microenvironment through modulating redox balance, attenuating inflammation and modifying intestinal flora. Hence, in view of the mutual influences among IBD pathogenesis, this work presents a synergistic intervention approach for effectively treating IBD.

Study on co-amorphous emerging solubilization behavior after gelation during dissolution: The importance of complexation and anti-crystallization

Co-amorphous (CM) is a promising technology for enhancing the aqueous solubility of insoluble drugs, but the gelation phenomenon has often occurred during the dissolution process and seriously threatened their solubility/dissolution performance. Therefore, it's quite important to design favorable CM systems to alleviate or even avoid the adverse effects of gelation phenomenon. In this study, CM systems of taxifolin (TAX) and oxymatrine (OMT) (TAX-OMT CMs) were constructed to improve the solubility and dissolution properties of TAX. Interestingly, TAX-OMT CMs gradually aggregated and obviously gelled during dissolution, but the solubility and dissolution of TAX in TAX-OMT CMs were significantly enhanced compared to crystalline TAX. Consequently, the underlying solubilization mechanisms of TAX-OMT CMs after gelation were systematically explored. For one thing, the complexation between the two components in TAX-OMT CMs was verified by phase solubility, fluorescence spectroscopy and isothermal titration calorimetry. For another, the residual solids of TAX-OMT CMs after dissolution evaluation were thoroughly characterized by means of powder X-ray diffraction, fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, scanning electron microscopy, which showed the anti-crystallization property of TAX-OMT CMs. Furthermore, molecular simulation demonstrated the intermolecular interactions of TAX-OMT CMs alone and TAX-OMT complexes in aqueous solution. Finally, pharmacokinetics study in rats suggested that the bioavailability of TAX in TAX-OMT CM (1:2) was approximately 5.5-fold higher than that of crystalline TAX after oral administration. Collectively, this study reveals the importance of complexation and anti-crystallization effects of CM systems on maintaining solubilization behavior after gelation, providing an effective strategy to improve the absorption performance of pharmaceutical CM systems.

Co-amorphous systems of sulfasalazine with matrine-type alkaloids: Enhanced solubility behaviors and synergistic therapeutic potential

Sulfasalazine (SULF), a sulfonamide antibiotic, has been utilized in the treatment of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) and inflammatory bowel disease (IBD) since its discovery. However, its poor water solubility causes the high daily doses (1---3 g) for patients, which may lead to the intolerable toxic and side effects for their lifelong treatment for RA and IBD. In this work, two water-soluble natural anti-inflammatory alkaloids, matrine (MAR) and sophoridine (SPD), were employed to construct the co-amorphous systems of SULF for addressing its solubility issue. These newly obtained co-amorphous forms of SULF were comprehensively characterized by powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), temperature-modulated differential scanning calorimetry (mDSC), Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy (XPS). We also investigated their dissolution behavior, including powder dissolution, in vitro release, and intrinsic dissolution rate. Both co-amorphous systems exhibited superior dissolution performance compared to crystalline SULF. The underlying mechanism responsible for the enhanced dissolution behaviors in co-amorphous systems were also elucidated. These mechanisms include the inhibition of nucleation, complexation, increased hydrophilicity, and robust intermolecular interactions in aqueous solutions. Importantly, these co-amorphous systems demonstrated satisfactory physical stability under various storage conditions. Network pharmacological analysis was utilized to investigate the potential therapeutic targets of both co-amorphous systems against RA, revealing similar yet distinct multi-target synergistic therapeutic mechanisms in the treatment of this condition. Our study suggests these drug-drug co-amorphous systems hold promise for optimizing SULF dosage in the future and providing a potential drug combination strategy.

Insight into Formation, Synchronized Release and Stability of Co-Amorphous Curcumin-Piperine by Integrating Experimental-Modeling Techniques

Intermolecular interactions between drug and co-former are crucial in the formation, release and physical stability of co-amorphous system. However, the interactions remain difficult to investigate with only experimental tools. In this study, intermolecular interactions of co-amorphous curcumin-piperine (i.e., CUR-PIP CM) during formation, dissolution and storage were explored by integrating experimental and modeling techniques. The formed CUR-PIP CM exhibited the strong hydrogen bond interaction between the phenolic OH group of CUR and the CO group of PIP as confirmed by FTIR, ss 13C NMR and molecular dynamics (MD) simulation. In comparison to crystalline CUR, crystalline PIP and their physical mixture, CUR-PIP CM performed significantly increased dissolution accompanied by the synchronized release of CUR and PIP, which arose from the greater interaction energy of H2O-CUR molecules and H2O-PIP molecules than CUR-PIP molecules, breaking the hydrogen bond between CUR and PIP molecules, and then causing a pair-wise solvation of CUR-PIP CM at the molecular level. Furthermore, the stronger intermolecular interaction between CUR and PIP was revealed by higher binding energy of CUR-PIP molecules, which contributed to the excellent physical stability of CUR-PIP CM over amorphous CUR or PIP. The study provides a unique insight into the formation, release and stability of co-amorphous system from MD perspective. Meanwhile, this integrated technique can be used as a practical methodology for the future design of co-amorphous formulations.

A review on pharmacokinetics of sinomenine and its anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects

Autoimmune diseases (ADs), with significant effects on morbidity and mortality, are a broad spectrum of disorders featured by body's immune responses being directed against its own tissues, resulting in chronic inflammation and tissue damage. Sinomenine (SIN) is an alkaloid isolated from the root and stem of Sinomenium acutum which is mainly used to treat pain, inflammation and immune disorders for centuries in China. Its potential anti-inflammatory role for treating immune-related disorders in experimental animal models and in some clinical applications have been reported widely, suggesting an inspiring application prospect of SIN. In this review, the pharmacokinetics, drug delivery systems, pharmacological mechanisms of action underlying the anti-inflammatory and immunomodulatory effects of SIN, and the possibility of SIN as adjuvant to disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drugs (DMARDs) therapy were summarized and evaluated. This paper aims to reveal the potential prospects and limitations of SIN in the treatment of inflammatory and immune diseases, and to provide ideas for compensating its limitations and reducing the side effects, and thus to make SIN better translate to the clinic.

Influence of Co-amorphization on the Physical Stability and Dissolution Performance of an Anthelmintic Drug Flubendazole

In this work, the co-amorphization approach was applied to flubendazole (FluBZ), resulting in the formation of two novel solid forms of FluBZ with l-phenylalanine (Phe) and l-tryptophan (Trp). A variety of physicochemical techniques have been used to describe new systems, including powder X-ray diffraction, thermal methods, infrared spectroscopy, and scanning electron microscopy. Co-amorphization has been shown to suppress crystallization tendency and considerably increase the shelf-life storage of amorphous flubendazole solid across a wide range of relative humidities. The dissolution behavior of the amorphous forms in biorelevant media at pH = 1.6, pH = 6.5, and 37 °C has been studied in terms of C_max (maximum FluBZ concentration), T_max (time to attain peak drug concentration), and AUC (concentration area under the curve during dissolution). At pH = 6.5, a continuous supersaturation and the highest AUC value of all examined systems were observed for the FluBZ-Phe (1:1) system. The phase solubility diagrams revealed that the reason for the better dissolution performance of FluBZ-Phe (1:1) at pH = 6.5 is a complexation between the components in a solution. This work highlights the applicability of co-amorphous systems in improving the physical stability and dissolution performance of drug compounds with poor biopharmaceutical characteristics.

Recent Advancements in Drug Delivery of Sinomenine, A Disease-Modifying Anti-Rheumatic Drug

Sinomenine (SIN) is a benzyltetrahydroisoquinoline-type alkaloid isolated from the dried plant root and stem of Sinomenium acutum (Thumb.) Rehd.et Wils, which shows potent anti-inflammatory and analgesic effects. As a transforming disease-modifying anti-rheumatic drug, SIN has been used to treat rheumatoid arthritis over twenty-five years in China. In recent years, SIN is also in development for use against other disorders, including colitis, pain, traumatic brain injury, and uveitis. However, its commercial hydrochloride (SIN-HCl) shows low oral bioavailability and certain allergic reactions in patients, due to the release of histamine. Therefore, a large number of pharmaceutical strategies have been explored to address these liabilities, such as prolonging release behaviors, enhancing skin permeation and adsorption for transdermal delivery, targeted SIN delivery using new material or conjugates, and co-amorphous technology. This review discusses these different delivery strategies and approaches employed to overcome the limitations of SIN for its efficient delivery, in order to achieve improved bioavailability and reduced side effects. The potential advantages and limitations of SIN delivery strategies are elaborated along with discussions of potential future SIN drug development strategies.