A Q&A With The Experts: New Technologies To Improve Solubility Of Brick Dust Compounds

Continued advancements in drug discovery have yielded a wide range of new, yet complex molecules in today’s growing pipeline. However, many of these products demonstrate poor aqueous solubility during development, which leads to poor bioavailability and, hence, efficacy. A portion of these compounds, known as “brick dust” compounds, are poorly soluble in both water and organic solvents, potentially leading to even greater challenges for drug product manufacturers.

In a recent webinar, David Lyon, Ph.D., Senior Fellow, and Molly Adam, R&D Spray Drying Expert, Bioavailability Enhancement, Lonza Small Molecules, discussed three enabling technologies designed to improve drug solubility in organic solvents for spray drying as well as case studies detailing the process for each one. These methods include heating a drug slurry to a temperature below the solvent’s boiling point, which increases its solubility; using an in-line heat exchanger to rapidly increase the temperature of the solution above the boiling point immediately before atomization, dissolving the drug at a higher concentration (known as Temperature Shift); using volatile processing aids, with no need for heating or other changes to the normal spray drying process. Not only can these methods increase solubility in compounds with poor solubility, but they can also increase throughput, ultimately reducing solvent consumption, cycle times, and costs.

The following Q&A session was held after this webinar, where Lyon and Adam addressed attendee questions about the details of the methods and case studies.