Protecting Pharmaceuticals From Degradation

By Adrian Possumato

Pharmaceuticals are subject to a variety of degradation pathways that compromise drug safety and shelf-life. By far the greatest degradation is caused by hydrolysis and oxidation. However, other mechanisms include racemization, photodegradation, elimination, and complexation. A number of active packaging components are available to help maintain pharmaceutical integrity; however, determining the optimal solution requires a calculated analysis that joins the expertise of packaging engineers and pharmaceutical formulation chemists.

Sorbents such as desiccants and oxygen absorbers represent a class of active packaging components that can be used to guard against the effects of degradation. These ensure the integrity of packaged pharmaceuticals. Sorbents are considered “active” because they respond to changes in the headspace of packaging relative to outside conditions. Packaged sorbents are manufactured from silica gel, molecular sieve, and a variety of oxygen-absorbing compounds.

Active sorbents have high adsorbing capacity and take up little space. When incorporated successfully into a package, they can significantly reduce the rate of degradation, resulting in an improvement in pharmaceutical quality, safety, shelf-life, stability, and usability.