Multivariate control charts for monitoring captopril stability

Exploration and characterization of a novel cocrystal hydrate consisting of captopril, an amino acid-derived drug

We found a novel cocrystal consisting of captopril, which is an amino acid-derived drug having a thiol group, and l-proline by using nano-spot-screening with LF-Raman. This cocrystal hydrate showed high hygroscopicity resulted from changes in intermolecular interactions.

Post hoc study to investigate the potential causes of poor quality of cardiovascular medicines collected in sub-Saharan countries

OBJECTIVES

The incidence of cardiovascular diseases is increasing and there is a growing need to provide access to quality cardio drugs in Africa. In the SEVEN study, we analysed 1530 cardiovascular drug samples randomly collected from 10 African countries. By that time, of the seven drugs products analysed, only those containing amlodipine and captopril had very low assay values with active substance contents that could be less than 75% of those expected. In this article we investigate complementary aspects of the amlodipine and captopril samples so to explain the previously observed low assays for these two drugs.

DESIGN

Post hoc analysis of the captopril and amlodipine drugs samples and their packages collected in the context of the SEVEN study.

SETTING

10 countries were concerned: Benin, Burkina Faso, Congo, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Guinea, Côte d'Ivoire, Mauritania, Niger, Senegal and Togo.

PARTICIPANTS

Local scientists and hospital practitioners collected the drug samples in the 10 African countries.

OUTCOME MEASURES

The drug amount and the relative amounts of drug impurities, as well as the main compounds of the drugs packaging, were analysed.

RESULTS

Identification of the blister packaging of the samples led to separate both amlodipine and captopril drug samples in two groups. Mann Whitney's bilateral test showed a significant difference (p<0.0001) between the median value of the captopril dosage when tablets are packaged in blisters providing higher protection to humidity (n=105) as opposed to the tablets packaged in blisters providing lower humidity protection (n=130).

CONCLUSION

Based on these results, particular attention should be paid to the materials and types of packaging used in order to minimise the lack of control over the exposures and drug circuits present in these different countries.

Chemometrics Approaches in Forced Degradation Studies of Pharmaceutical Drugs

Chemometrics is the chemistry field responsible for planning and extracting the maximum of information of experiments from chemical data using mathematical tools (linear algebra, statistics, and so on). Active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) can form impurities when exposed to excipients or environmental variables such as light, high temperatures, acidic or basic conditions, humidity, and oxidative environment. By considering that these impurities can affect the safety and efficacy of the drug product, it is necessary to know how these impurities are yielded and to establish the pathway of their formation. In this context, forced degradation studies of pharmaceutical drugs have been used for the characterization of physicochemical stability of APIs. These studies are also essential in the validation of analytical methodologies, in order to prove the selectivity of methods for the API and its impurities and to create strategies to avoid the formation of degradation products. This review aims to demonstrate how forced degradation studies have been actually performed and the applications of chemometric tools in related studies. Some papers are going to be discussed to exemplify the chemometric applications in forced degradation studies.