Simultaneous Quantification of Carbamazepine Crystal Forms in Ternary Mixtures (I, III, and IV) by Diffuse Reflectance FTIR Spectroscopy (DRIFTS) and Multivariate Calibration

An experimental study on polymorph control and continuous heterogeneous crystallization of carbamazepine

Influences of superstaturation, stirring, anti-solvent, and polymer type on polymorph are investigated.

Development of ternary solid dispersions with hydrophilic polymer and surface adsorbent for improving dissolution rate of carbamazepine

In this study solid dispersions of carbamazepine in the hydrophilic Kollidon® VA64 polymer, adsorbed onto Neusilin® UFL2 adsorption carrier have been employed to improve carbamazepine dissolution rate. In order to evaluate effects of changing in the proportions of all solid dispersion components on carbamazepine dissolution rate, D-optimal mixture experimental design was used in the formulation development. From all prepared solid dispersion formulations, significantly faster carbamazepine dissolution was observed compared to pure drug. Ternary solid dispersions containing carbamazepine, Kollidon® VA64 and Neusilin® UFL2 showed superior dissolution performances over binary ones, containing only carbamazepine and Neusilin® UFL2. Proportion of Kollidon® VA64 showed the most profound effect on the amount of carbamazepine dissolved after 10 and 30 min, whereby these parameters increase upon increasing in Kollidon® VA64 concentrations up to the middle values in the studied range of Kollidon® VA64 concentrations. Physicochemical characterization of the selected samples using differential scanning calorimetry, FT-IR spectroscopy, powder X-ray diffraction and polarizing light microscopy showed polymorphic transition of carbamazepine from more thermodynamically stable monoclinic form (form III) to less thermodynamically stable triclinic form (form I) in the case of ternary, but not of binary solid dispersion formulations. This polymorphic transition can be one of the factors responsible for improving of carbamazepine dissolution rate from studied solid dispersions. Ternary solid dispersions prepared with Kollidon® VA64 hydrophilic polymer and Neusilin® UFL2 adsorption carrier resulted in significantly improvement of carbamazepine dissolution rate, but formation of metastable polymorphic form of carbamazepine requires particular care to be taken in ensuring product long term stability.

DRIFTS-based multivariate calibration and prediction of low-concentration polymorphic impurities in multiple lots of an active pharmaceutical ingredient, and outlier criteria

Mixtures of two polymorphic impurities with one lot of the desired form of an Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API), mostly binary mixtures, with up to 2% wt/wt of an impurity, were used for multivariate modeling via Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform (DRIFT) spectra. The two obtained cross-validated models, significantly differing in accuracy, were used to predict the concentrations of these impurities in independent API lots. The predictions were found to be biased and with outliers, as revealed by the Q residuals criterion but not the other two outlier criteria. Updating the models with the spectra from the mixtures using multiple API lots produced very different calibration results: the model of the impurity with the strong IR response became noticeably worse, while the model of the impurity with less responsive IR signal changed only marginally. The updated models performed much better in the prediction as the bias for both polymorphs was reduced and the outlier-related issues mostly disappeared.

Comparison and evaluation of the quick purification methods of methamphetamine hydrochloride from dimethyl sulfone for spectroscopic identification

Methods to quickly purify methamphetamine hydrochloride from the cutting agent dimethyl sulfone for subsequent identification of confiscated crystalline samples using infrared absorption spectroscopy were compared and evaluated. Although sequential solvation and reprecipitation methods were simple, spectral contamination from dimethyl sulfone was inevitable and might affect the interpretation of the spectra. In addition, methamphetamine hydrochloride and dimethyl sulfone could form a solid solution because of solvation of both crystals into a single solution layer. By contrast, sublimation was an effective method for separation of methamphetamine hydrochloride and dimethyl sulfone. Sublimation combined with infrared absorption spectroscopy enabled rapid identification of crystalline methamphetamine hydrochloride.

Chemometrics-assisted solid-state characterization of pharmaceutically relevant materials. Polymorphic substances

Current regulations command to properly characterize pharmaceutically relevant solid systems. Chemometrics comprise a range of valuable tools, suitable to process large amounts of data and extract valuable information hidden in their structure. This review aims to detail the results of the fruitful association between analytical techniques and chemometrics methods, focusing on those which help to gain insight into the characteristics of drug polymorphism as an important aspect of the solid state of bulk drugs and drug products. Hence, the combination of Raman, terahertz, mid- and near- infrared spectroscopies, as well as instrumental signals resulting from X-ray powder diffraction, ¹³C solid state nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy and thermal methods with quali-and quantitative chemometrics methodologies are examined. The main issues reviewed, concerning pharmaceutical drug polymorphism, include the use of chemometrics-based approaches to perform polymorph classification and assignment of polymorphic identity, as well as the determination of given polymorphs in simple mixtures and complex systems. Aspects such as the solvation/desolvation of solids, phase transformation, crystallinity and the recrystallization from the amorphous state are also discussed. A brief perspective of the field for the next future is provided, based on the developments of the last decade and the current state of the art of analytical instrumentation and chemometrics methodologies.

Spray Drying as a Reliable Route to Produce Metastable Carbamazepine Form IV

Carbamazepine (CBZ) is an active pharmaceutical ingredient used in the treatment of epilepsy that can form at least 5 polymorphic forms. Metastable form IV was originally discovered from crystallization with polymer additives; however, it has not been observed from subsequent solvent-only crystallization efforts. This work reports the reproducible formation of phase pure crystalline form IV by spray drying of methanolic CBZ solution. Characterization of the material was carried out using diffraction, scanning electron microscopy, and differential scanning calorimetry. In situ Raman spectroscopy was used to monitor the spray-dried product during the spray drying process. This work demonstrates that spray drying provides a robust method for the production of form IV CBZ, and the combination of high supersaturation and rapid solid isolation from solution overcomes the apparent limitation of more traditional solution crystallization approaches to produce metastable crystalline forms.

Green method by diffuse reflectance infrared spectroscopy and spectral region selection for the quantification of sulphamethoxazole and trimethoprim in pharmaceutical formulations

An alternative method for the quantification of sulphametoxazole (SMZ) and trimethoprim (TMP) using diffuse reflectance infrared Fourier-transform spectroscopy (DRIFTS) and partial least square regression (PLS) was developed. Interval Partial Least Square (iPLS) and Synergy Partial Least Square (siPLS) were applied to select a spectral range that provided the lowest prediction error in comparison to the full-spectrum model. Fifteen commercial tablet formulations and forty-nine synthetic samples were used. The ranges of concentration considered were 400 to 900 mg g-1SMZ and 80 to 240 mg g-1 TMP. Spectral data were recorded between 600 and 4000 cm-1 with a 4 cm-1 resolution by Diffuse Reflectance Infrared Fourier Transform Spectroscopy (DRIFTS). The proposed procedure was compared to high performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). The results obtained from the root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP), during the validation of the models for samples of sulphamethoxazole (SMZ) and trimethoprim (TMP) using siPLS, demonstrate that this approach is a valid technique for use in quantitative analysis of pharmaceutical formulations. The selected interval algorithm allowed building regression models with minor errors when compared to the full spectrum PLS model. A RMSEP of 13.03 mg g-1for SMZ and 4.88 mg g-1 for TMP was obtained after the selection the best spectral regions by siPLS.

Effect of composition in the development of carbamazepine hot-melt extruded solid dispersions by application of mixture experimental design

Objectives

This study investigates the application of hot-melt extrusion for the formulation of carbamazepine (CBZ) solid dispersions, using polyethyleneglycol-polyvinyl caprolactam-polyvinyl acetate grafted copolymer (Soluplus, BASF, Germany) and polyoxyethylene–polyoxypropylene block copolymer (Poloxamer 407). In agreement with the current Quality by Design principle, formulations of solid dispersions were prepared according to a D-optimal mixture experimental design, and the influence of formulation composition on the properties of the dispersions (CBZ heat of fusion and release rate) was estimated.

Methods

Prepared solid dispersions were characterized using differential scanning calorimetry, attenuated total reflectance infrared spectroscopy and hot stage microscopy, as well as by determination of the dissolution rate of CBZ from the hot-melt extrudates.

Key findings

Solid dispersions of CBZ can be successfully prepared using the novel copolymer Soluplus. Inclusion of Poloxamer 407 as a plasticizer facilitated the processing and decreased the hardness of hot-melt extrudates. Regardless of their composition, all hot-melt extrudates displayed an improvement in the release rate compared to the pure CBZ, with formulations having the ratio of CBZ : Poloxamer 407 = 1 : 1 showing the highest increase in CBZ release rate.

Conclusions

Interactions between the mixture components (CBZ and polymers), or quadratic effects of the components, play a significant role in overall influence on the CBZ release rate.

Multivariate analysis of quaternary carbamazepine-saccharin mixtures by X-ray diffraction and infrared spectroscopy

Co-crystallization brings new opportunities for improving the solubility and dissolution rate of drugs with the chance of finely tuning some relevant chemical-physical properties of mixtures containing bioactive compounds. As co-crystallization process involves several molecular species, which are generally solid at room conditions, its control requires accurate knowledge and monitoring of the different phase that might appear during the formulation stage. In the present study the suitability of X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) and Fourier-transformed infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy in quantifying mixtures of carbamazepine polymorphs (forms I and III), saccharin, and carbamazepine-saccharin cocrystals (form I) is assessed. Quaternary crystalline mixtures typically produced in the process of co-crystal production were analyzed by multivariate methods. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used for the identification of the crystal phases, while unsupervised simultaneous fitting of the spectra from pure phases, or supervised partial least squares (PLS) methods were used for their quantitative determination. The performance of data analysis was enhanced by applying peculiar pre-processing methods, such as SNIP filtering in case of FTIR and PCA filtering in case of XRPD. It was found that, for XRPD data, the automatic multi-fitting procedures and PLS models developed in this study are able to quantify single phases in mixtures to an accuracy level comparable to that obtained by the widely used Rietveld method, which, however, requires knowledge of the crystal structures. For FTIR data the results here obtained prove that this technique can be used as a fast method for polymorph characterization.

Quantitative determination of diclofenac sodium in solid dosage forms by FT-Raman spectroscopy

The FT-Raman quantification of diclofenac sodium in tablets and capsules was performed with the help of the partial least squares (PLS), principal component regression (PCR) and counter-propagation artificial neural networks (CP-ANN) methods. For the analysed tablets, calibration models were built using unnormalised spectra and spectra normalised by the intensity of a selected band of an internal standard. Different pre-processing methods were applied for the capsules. To compare the predictive ability of the models, the relative standard errors of prediction (RSEP) were calculated. The 5 x 5 CP-ANN and PLS methods gave models of comparable quality, which were usually more efficient than the PCR ones. The RSEP error values for the tablets were in the range of 2.4-3.8% for the calibration and 2.6-3.5% for the validation data sets and for the three procedures applied. For capsules, the RSEP errors were in the range of 0.8-1.9% and 1.4-1.7% for the calibration and validation samples, respectively. Five commercial products containing 25, 50 or 75 mg of diclofenac sodium per tablet/capsule were quantified. Concentrations found from the Raman data analysis agree with the results of the reference analysis and correlate strongly with the declared values with the recovery of 99.5-101.3%, 99.7-102.0% and 99.9-101.2% for the PLS, PCR and CP-ANN methods, respectively. The proposed procedure can be a fast and convenient alternative to the standard pharmacopoeial methods of diclofenac sodium quantification in solid dosage forms.

Influence of sample characteristics on quantification of carbamazepine hydrate formation by X-ray powder diffraction and Raman spectroscopy

This study aimed to assess the suitability of two widely utilized solid state characterization techniques namely powder X-ray diffraction (XRPD) and Raman spectroscopy, in polymorph detection and quantification for carbamazepine anhydrate and dihydrate mixtures. The influences of particle size, particle morphology, mixing, and in particular, surface bias on quantitation were investigated. Binary mixtures of carbamazepine anhydrate (form III) and dihydrate were prepared and analyzed using both XRPD and Raman spectroscopy in combination with partial least squares analysis. It was found that in principle both XRPD and Raman spectroscopy could be used to build calibration models for quantitative analysis, and a satisfactory correlation between the two techniques could be achieved. However, Raman spectroscopy appeared to be a more reliable quantification method because problems such as different particle size, morphology, and special distribution of the two solid state forms of the drug seemed to have no significant influence on Raman scattering in this study. The robust nature of Raman analysis greatly facilitates the whole quantification process from the preparation of calibration models to the quantification of in situ CBZ-DH conversion.