The influence of the solvent and intermolecular interactions on the physical structure of spray dried amorphous solid dispersions

Promovendus/a: Lennert Cools

Promotor(en): Prof. dr. Guy Van den Mooter, Prof. dr. Peter Adriaensens

Amorphous solid dispersions (ASDs) are a popular method to increase the solubility of drugs in the gastrointestinal tract. A large fraction of the ASDs are manufactured via spray drying, a technique where the components are first dissolved in an organic solvent, followed by spraying of the solution in a heated chamber, which leads to fast evaporation of the solvent. One aspect of the spray drying proces that is not fully understood, is the effect of the organic solvent that is used to dissolved the components. Additionally, it is known that intermolecular interactions between drug and polymer play an important role in the properties of the ASDs. It is however still difficult to predict if interactions will be formed based on the chemical structure of the components. It was therefore the aim of this thesis to investigate the effect of the organic solvent and the effect of using drugs and polymers with different hydrogen bonding properties.

The influence of the solvent was investigated by spray drying the same drug-polymer combination from five different organic solvents and investigating what the influence is on the physical stability and drug release behavior. For the other part of this investigation, ASDs ware manufactured with four different drugs and two different polymers that each contained different types and numbers of hydrogen bond donor and acceptor groups.