Continuous Manufacturing of Pharmaceutical Nanoparticles (CM-NANO)

Poor solubility of new chemical entities (NCEs) is a major bottleneck in the pharmaceutical industry, which typically leads to poor drug bioavailability and efficacy. Nanotechnologies offer an interesting route to improve the apparent solubility and dissolution rate of pharmaceutical drugs. The work presented herein demonstrates a novel production and isolation technology for drug nanoparticles using batch and continuous CO2-assisted spraying processes. Nanoparticles of three BCS class II Active Pharmaceutical Ingredients (APIs), namely carbamazepine (CBZ), ketoprofen (KET) and risperidone (RIS), were produced and successfully coated onto micron-sized microcrystalline cellulose (MCC) particles. The API nanoformulations exhibit enhanced dissolution and improved rheological properties. This nanotechnology is able to control the solid state form of the APIs through a controlled balance between antisolvent supersaturation in the nozzle versus spray drying atomization, and combining that with an isolation/coating step. [1]

 [1] V. Verma; K. M. Ryan; L. Padrela, Int. J. Pharm., 592, 2020, 120032.

Luis  Padrela, Lecturer, Department of Chemical Sciences, Bernal Institute, University of Limerick