09.03.2021 by Milena Riedl
Spotlight on Amorphous / Mesomorphous Pharmaceuticals
Our video series “Expert Insights into Substance Analysis” continues! Today, Dr. Joana Pinto (Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering GmbH) introduces three examples studying the interaction of drugs and excipients using thermal analysis.
Expert Insights into Substance Analysis by means of Thermal Analysis
Our video series comprises a loose series of contributions in various forms and aims to convey expert insights from the field of pharmaceuticals – both academia and industry – to you.
Today’s guest: Dr. Joana Pinto
Dr. Pinto has been working in the field of pharmaceutical research for 8 years and started her career at the University of Lisbon studying the solid state of different formulations. Today, she works at the Research Center Pharmaceutical Engineering GmbH in Graz, Austria, which is a global leader in pharmaceutical engineering sciences.
A part of Dr. Pinto’s work focuses on how the solid state of excipients and drugs will affect the performance of solid dosage forms.
Studying the interaction of drugs and excipients using thermal analysis
Materials can exist in a continuum of phases – from crystalline to mesomorphous and amorphous. In the different phases, the materials also have different thermal properties.
Dr. Pinto introduces three case studies:
Case Study 1: Different distribution of water within amorphous compounds and how this affects thermal properties
Case Study 2: Different miscibilities between a drug and a polymer: To develop an amorphous solid dispersion, one critical parameter is the knowledge about how the amorphous active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) will mix with the polymer that is selected to be an excipient in the amorphous solid dispersion.
Case Study 3: Drug interaction with mesomorphous phases of DPPC, which is a lipid in our body.
Enjoy watching!
In the last episode, Christian Grune focused on the characterization of nano-based drug delivery systems using Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC).