AFM in Pharma Research Paper published

Stephen Minne posted on Mon, Nov 15 2010 1:48 PM

rated by 0 users

Attached is a paper that is published in this month’s issue of the journal “Pharmaceutical Research”. It is titled “Atomic Force Microscopy-Based Screening of Drug-Excipient Miscibility and Stability of Solid Dispersions,” by Lauer et. al. from Roche (and including Johannes Kindt from Bruker).

The Article describes a novel Assay (test) for the compatibility of Active Pharmaceutical Ingredient (API) and Excipient in an Amorphous Formulation.

Amorphous Formulations are often used to make hydrophobic APIs soluble in the body (and hence bioavailable). The biggest problem with them is that it takes a long time (weeks-months) to ensure they’re stable (don’t separate or crystallize over time). With AFM, the authors identified stable formulations in hours-days.

The resesearch in this paper is important to Pharma because developing a new drug can costs over $1B. The time to re-coup the investment is tied to patent life (so one day of development can have an opportunity cost of ~$0.5M.) The AFM’s nano characterization power may be ideal for detecting stability faster than any competing technique.

You can download the paper here: Lauer et al, Pharm Research 2010.pdf

And the link to the Journal: http://www.springerlink.com/content/x7517n27445312j3/fulltext.pdf

Please post if you have any questions or comments.

Enjoy,
Steve