Optimizing Drug Development: Harnessing the Sustainability of Pharmaceutical Cocrystals

Environmental impacts of the industrial revolution necessitate adoption of sustainable practices in all areas of development. The pharmaceutical industry faces increasing pressure to minimize its ecological footprint due to its significant contribution to environmental pollution. Over the past two decades, pharmaceutical cocrystals have received immense popularity due to their ability to optimize the critical attributes of active pharmaceutical ingredients and presented an avenue to bring improved drug products to the market. This review explores the potential of pharmaceutical cocrystals as an ecofriendly alternative to traditional solid forms, offering a sustainable approach to drug development. From reducing the number of required doses to improving the stability of actives, from eliminating synthetic operations to using pharmaceutically approved chemicals, from the use of continuous and solvent-free manufacturing methods to leveraging published data on the safety and toxicology, the cocrystallization approach contributes to sustainability of drug development. The latest trends suggest a promising role of pharmaceutical cocrystals in bringing novel and improved medicines to the market, which has been further fuelled by the recent guidance from the major regulatory agencies.

Structural insight and in silico prediction of the pharmacokinetic parameters and toxicity of alkaline earth metal compounds strontium and barium with the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug nimesulide

In the crystals of alkaline earth metal compounds strontium and barium with the non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug nimesulide, the strontium cation is nine-coordinated with a distorted tricapped trigonal prismatic geometry TCTPR-9, whereas the ten-coordinated barium ion exhibits a distorted tetracapped trigonal prismatic geometry TCTPR-10.

Crystallization from solution versus mechanochemistry to obtain double-drug multicomponent crystals of ethacridine with salicylic/acetylsalicylic acids

Salicylic and acetylsalicylic acids and ethacridine have complementary bioactive properties. They can be combined to obtain double-drug multicomponent crystals. Their reactivity in different environments was explored to obtain the possible compounds, stable at different hydration degrees. Solution, liquid-assisted grinding, and dry preparation approaches were applied to the couples of reactants in different stoichiometric ratios. Four compounds were obtained, and three out of them were stable and reproducible enough to determine their structures using SCXRD or PXRD methods. When coupled to ethacridine, salicylic acid gave two stable structures (1 and 3, both showing 1:1 ratio but different hydration degree) and a metastable one (5), while acetylsalicylic acid only one structure from solution (2 in 1:1 ratio), while LAG caused hydrolysis and formation of the same compound obtained by LAG of ethacridine with salicylic acid. While solution precipitation gave dihydrated (1) or monohydrated (2) structures with low yields, LAG of salicylic acid and ethacridine allowed obtaining an anhydrous salt complex (3) with a yield close to 1. The structures obtained by solution crystallizations maximize π(acridine)-π(acridine) contacts with a less compact packing, while the LAG structure is more compact with a packing driven by hydrogen bonds. For all compounds, NMR, ATR-FTIR, and Hirshfeld surface analysis and energy framework calculations were performed.