A new and improved method for the preparation of drug nanosuspension formulations using acoustic mixing technology.

Drug discovery and development is a challenging area. During the drug optimization process, available drug compounds often have poor physicochemical and biopharmaceutical properties, making the proper in vivo evaluation of these compounds difficult. To address these challenges, drug nanoparticles of poorly soluble compounds have emerged as a promising formulation approach. Herein, we report on a new drug sparing technology utilizing low shear acoustic mixing to rapidly identify optimized nanosuspension formulations for a wide range of compounds with dramatically improved material and time efficiencies. This approach has several key advantages over typical methods of preparing nanoparticles, including miniaturization of the milling process, the ability to evaluate multiple formulation conditions in a high throughput manner, and direct translation to optimized formulation scale-up for in vivo studies. Furthermore, there are additional benefits obtained with this new approach resulting in nanosuspension formulations with significant stability and physical property enhancements over those obtained using traditional media milling techniques. These advantages make this approach highly suitable for the rapid evaluation of potential drug candidates in the discovery and development space.

Development of new laboratory tools for assessment of granulation behavior during bulk active pharmaceutical ingredient drying.

Approximately 30% of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) experience agglomeration, granulation, and breakage during agitated drying. Currently, there is no small-scale bench tool to help assess and observe granulation behavior of APIs in the laboratory and subsequently lead to the development of a robust drying method. As a result, more conservative drying methods are usually used at scale and much longer drying times are needed. In this work, we build on work reported in the literature and demonstrate that a mixer torque rheometer (MTR) can be a useful small-scale tool to flag potentially problematic granulation behavior of APIs under different conditions. The results from the MTR were confirmed using a second new tool involving the use of an acoustic mixer to verify and observe the granulation behavior on a small scale. We also show consistency between the data collected at the laboratory and the pilot plant scales.