Amorphous materials, along with amorphous dispersions, are becoming more prevalent in the pharmaceutical industry. As the hunt for new compounds continues, a significant number of newly discovered compounds are larger, more flexible and typically less. In order to overcome the solubility (and potentially bioavailability) issues, amorphous solid forms are becoming a front-runner. A vast majority of Aptuits R&D efforts have been focused on these noncrystalline forms, in order to further understand their advantages and disadvantages, and to develop analytical techniques that can be used for characterization during their various development stages. Of special importance is the distinction between amorphous, disordered, nanocrystalline and crystalline forms, as they have differing implications on drug substance stability, as well as drug product stability and efficacy.
To this extent we have developed cutting edge computational approaches to X-ray powder pattern analysis. Our new CodeX Software Suite is the first software package capable of rapidly providing accurate structural information from standard laboratory X-ray powder diffraction data. The CodeX Software enables our scientists to quickly obtain structural information such as correct unit cell parameters, molecular packing information, and electron density distribution within the unit cell. This information can be used in many ways to speed drug development and address manufacturing issues for both drug substance and drug product. Using the software, the following may be determined:
- unit cell parameters, molecular packing, and electron density distribution
- prediction of density, stability, hygroscopicity, and other properties
- analysis of microstructure, average crystal size and strain
- analysis of X-ray amorphous materials and determination of their crystalline parents
- distinction between true amorphous and disordered crystalline materials
- quantitative (cGMP) and semi-quantitative (non GMP) mixture analysis