Ultraslow Cooling for the Stabilization of Pharmaceutical Glasses

Design of a homologous series of molecular glassformers

We design and synthesize a set of homologous organic molecules by taking advantage of facile and tailorable Suzuki cross coupling reactions to produce triarylbenzene derivatives. By adjusting the number and the arrangement of conjugated rings, the identity of heteroatoms, lengths of fluorinated alkyl chains, and other interaction parameters, we create a library of glassformers with a wide range of properties. Measurements of the glass transition temperature (T_g) show a power-law relationship between T_g and molecular weight (M_W), with of the molecules, with an exponent of 0.3 ± 0.1, for T_g values spanning a range of 300-450 K. The trends in indices of refraction and expansion coefficients indicate a general increase in the glass density with M_W, consistent with the trends observed in T_g variations. A notable exception to these trends was observed with the addition of alkyl and fluorinated alkyl groups, which significantly reduced T_g and increased the dynamical fragility (which is otherwise insensitive to M_W). This is an indication of reduced density and increased packing frustrations in these systems, which is also corroborated by the observations of the decreasing index of refraction with increasing length of these groups. These data were used to launch a new database for glassforming materials, glass.apps.sas.upenn.edu.

Importance of Mesoporous Silica Particle Size in the Stabilization of Amorphous Pharmaceuticals-The Case of Simvastatin

In this paper, the role of mesoporous silica (MS) particle size in the stabilization of amorphous simvastatin (SVT) is revealed. For inhibiting recrystallization of the supercooled drug, the two MS materials (Syloid® XDP 3050 and Syloid® 244 FP) were employed. The crystallization tendency of SVT alone and in mixture with the MS materials was investigated by Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC) and Broadband Dielectric Spectroscopy (BDS). Neither confinement of the SVT molecules inside the MS pores nor molecular interactions between functional groups of the SVT molecules and the surface of the stabilizing excipient could explain the observed stabilization effect. The stabilization effect might be correlated with diffusion length of the SVT molecules in the MS materials that depended on the particle size. Moreover, MS materials possessing different particle sizes could offer free spaces with different sizes, which might influence crystal growth of SVT. All of these factors must be considered when mesoporous materials are used for stabilizing pharmaceutical glasses.

Influence of Annealing in the Close Vicinity of Tg on the Reorganization within Dimers and Its Impact on the Crystallization Kinetics of Gemfibrozil

In this paper, broadband dielectric spectroscopy (BDS) has been applied to study the molecular dynamics and crystallization kinetics of the antihyperlipidemic active pharmaceutical ingredient (API), gemfibrozil (GEM), as well as its deuterated (dGEM) and methylated (metGEM) derivatives, characterized by different types and strengths of intermolecular interactions. Moreover, calorimetric and infrared measurements have been carried out to characterize the thermal properties of examined samples and to probe a change in the H-bonding pattern in GEM, respectively. We found that the dielectric spectra of all examined compounds, collected below the glass transition temperature (T_g), reveal the presence of two secondary relaxations (β, γ). According to the coupling model (CM) predictions, it was assumed that the slower process (β) is of JG type, whereas the faster one (γ) has an intramolecular origin. Interestingly, the extensive crystallization kinetics measurements performed after applying two paths, i.e., the standard procedure (cooling and subsequently heating up to the appropriate temperature, T_c), as well as annealing at two temperatures in the vicinity of T_g and further heating up to T_c, showed that the annealing increases the crystallization rate in the case of native API, while the thermal history of the sample has no significant impact on the pace of this process in the two derivatives of GEM. Analysis of the dielectric strength (Δε) of the α-process during annealing, together with the results of Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) measurements, suggested that the reorganization within dimeric structures formed between the GEM molecules is responsible for the observed behavior. Importantly, our results differ from those obtained by Tominaka et al. (Tominaka, S.; Kawakami, K.; Fukushima, M.; Miyazaki, A.Physical Stabilization of Pharmaceutical Glasses Based on Hydrogen Bond Reorganization under Sub-T_g Temperature Mol. Pharm. 2017 14 264 273 10.1021/acs.molpharmaceut.6b00866.), who demonstrated that the sub-T_g annealing of ritonavir (RTV), which is able to form extensive supramolecular hydrogen bonds, protects this active substance against crystallization. Therefore, based on these contradictory reports, one can hypothesize that materials forming H-bonded structures, characterized by varying architecture, may behave differently after annealing in the vicinity of the glass transition temperature.