Molecular Profiles and GEA to assess early screening of poorly soluble drugs
Collaboration will use GEA Niro Drynetics single particle spray drying approach
Molecular Profiles, a specialist contract research and manufacturing organisation based in Nottingham, UK, has entered into a strategic collaboration with GEA Process Engineering to assess early screening of poorly water-soluble drugs and polymer compositions with the aim of improving solubility.
The collaboration will use the GEA Niro Drynetics single particle spray drying approach.
The two firms are working to develop a unique way of preparing solid dispersions of drugs and polymers. They aim to understand the viability of the potential drug delivery platform at single particle scale by comparing it with batch produced spray dried approaches.
The benefits of using the GEA Niro technology for this application are said to be the ability to assess the stability of drugs in polymer systems where only a limited amount of API is available and where multiple polymer types/drug loadings need to be screened for developability.
Jesper Jensen, research engineer at GEA Process Engineering, said: ‘The combined efforts of GEA Process Engineering and Molecular Profiles will rigorously test new approaches in spray drying formulations and we’re looking forward to be able to offer improved processes and efficiencies for formulation development.’
The collaboration highlights Molecular Profiles’ ability to characterise the physicochemical properties of ‘single’ particle spray dried materials and compare this with conventional spray dried material prepared at bulk scale.
Griseofulvin-PEG6000 solid dispersion samples at 2.5% and 20% loading are analysed using X-ray Photoelectron Spectroscopy (XPS), Atomic Force Microscopy (AFM), confocal Raman microscopy, FT Raman/FTIR, powder X-ray diffraction (PXRD), differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) to compare surface versus bulk properties and determine equivalence of the materials produced using the two processes.
