Understanding the Mechanism of Indomethacin-Saccharin Co-crystal Formation Using In-line Monitoring System based on PVM and FBRM

Abstract

Pharmaceutical co-crystals primarily to improve the solubility as well as stability of insoluble drug are to be investigated more intensively for IMDs as US FDA has reclassified co-crystal as a special case of solvates in August this year. In this study, we proposed a mechanism of indomethacin-saccharin co-crystal formation and the creation of transient indomethacin meta-stable form using in-line monitoring tools with the addition rate of anti-solvent as a critical process parameter. Among various instruments, we combined PVM (particle vision measurement) and FBRM (focused beam reflectance measurement) for the in-line monitoring of anti-solvent co-crystallization process. The off-line characterization of resulting powders was carried out employing the PXRD (powder x-ray diffraction) and DSC (differential scanning calorimeter). It was observed that the pathway to the final IMC-SAC co-crystal was significantly dependent upon the anti-solvent addition rate. The process conditions to obtain high quality co-crystal powder effectively were established. Consequently, we concluded that in-line monitoring combing the PVM and FBRM should be useful for the in-line monitoring of pharmaceutical co-crystallization processes.