New Developments in XRPD for the Pharmaceutical Industry

As seen in the Fall 2007 Pharmaceutical Online Solutions Update

X-ray powder diffraction (XRPD) analysis is used increasingly in the pharmaceutical industry for a wide range of applications, ranging from polymorph screening to analysis and optimization of final dosage forms.

While XRPD is already well established in the pharmaceutical industry (it is the accepted methodology for new product registrations and to secure patents), the technique is only used in a fraction of the areas for which it has potential. This has largely been due to the complexity and specialized nature of the analysis and instrumentation available.

Development Of XRPD
XRPD is a technique with the capacity to solve a wide variety of analytical problems and reveal structural details. The advantages of XRPD compared to other commonly used methods include non-destructive testing and its ability to analyze final dosage forms and to detect crystalline impurities and morphological changes during production.

Despite its great potential, for many years XRPD has remained purely a useful fingerprinting tool or a method to provide sets of d-spacings for patent applications. However, the emergence of ultra-fast detectors, considerably decreasing both data collection times and detection limits, together with advanced software for processing large amounts of rapidly generated data, has led to a dramatic increase in the use of XRPD in the pharmaceutical industry.

As a result, XRPD is now generating critical data for users in many areas of drug discovery, development, and manufacture.