Analysis Of Drug-Excipient Incompatibility In Discovery And Formulation Development

Often, active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) are processed with other excipients to enhance processing, stability, and bioavailability. Ensuring compatibility between excipients and APIs is crucial to maintaining the chemical and physical properties as well as the stability of the drug. Thermal analysis techniques, such as Differential Scanning Calorimetry (DSC), are immensely useful tools for detecting potential drug-excipient interactions that could impact the chemical and physical characteristics of the formulation.

In the pharmaceutical industry, the rapid screening of drug-excipient interactions is key during the discovery and formulation development of new drugs. The Discovery X3 DSC is a microcalorimeter system equipped with a multi-sample cell capable of simultaneously measuring highly sensitive heat flow data from up to three samples (e.g. API, excipients, and drug-excipient mixtures), significantly enhancing throughput. This application note outlines the analysis of drug-excipient incompatibility using the multi-sample Discovery X3 DSC.