0000000000116183
AUTHOR
Jozef Al-gousous
Exploring Bioequivalence of Dexketoprofen Trometamol Drug Products with the Gastrointestinal Simulator (GIS) and Precipitation Pathways Analyses
The present work aimed to explain the differences in oral performance in fasted humans who were categorized into groups based on the three different drug product formulations of dexketoprofen trometamol (DKT) salt&mdash
Oral Solid Dosage Form Disintegration Testing — The Forgotten Test
Since its inception in the 1930s, disintegration testing has become an important quality control (QC) test in pharmaceutical industry, and disintegration test procedures for various dosage forms have been described by the different pharmacopoeias, with harmonization among them still not quite complete. However, because of the fact that complete disintegration does not necessarily imply complete dissolution, much more research has been focused on dissolution rather than on disintegration testing. Nevertheless, owing to its simplicity, disintegration testing seems to be an attractive replacement to dissolution testing as recognized by the International Conference on Harmonization guidelines, …
In vitro prediction of in vivo absorption of ibuprofen from suspensions through rational choice of dissolution conditions
Two ibuprofen suspension formulations were investigated for their dissolution in various bicarbonate, phosphate and acetate buffers. Phosphate and acetate gave faster release than bicarbonate at comparable molarities. Nevertheless, mass transport modelling using the reversible non-equilibrium (RNE) approach enabled the calculation of phosphate molarities that gave good matches to physiological bicarbonate in terms of ibuprofen dissolution. This shows that developing surrogate buffers for bicarbonate that are devoid of the technical difficulties associated with the bicarbonate-CO2 systems is possible. In addition, the intestinal dissolution kinetics of the tested suspensions were determined …
Toward Biopredictive Dissolution for Enteric Coated Dosage Forms
The aim of this work was to develop a phosphate buffer based dissolution method for enteric-coated formulations with improved biopredictivity for fasted conditions. Two commercially available enteric-coated aspirin products were used as model formulations (Aspirin Protect 300 mg, and Walgreens Aspirin 325 mg). The disintegration performance of these products in a physiological 8 mM pH 6.5 bicarbonate buffer (representing the conditions in the proximal small intestine) was used as a standard to optimize the employed phosphate buffer molarity. To account for the fact that a pH and buffer molarity gradient exists along the small intestine, the introduction of such a gradient was proposed for p…
Mechanistic understanding of underperforming enteric coated products: Opportunities to add clinical relevance to the dissolution test.
Over the last 70 years several cases of in vivo failure of enteric coated (EC) formulations have been reported. The observed failures seem to be due to the slower than expected in vivo performance of EC products. Upon reaching the intestinal lumen, the dosage form is exposed to a bicarbonate buffered environment at much lower interfacial buffering capacity compared to those applied in compendial phosphate buffers. Hence, there is an urgent need to understand the behavior of EC products in bicarbonate buffer (BCB) and to revaluate the current dissolution methods used for such products. The current pilot study mechanistically investigated the performance of five EC products available in the C…
Formulation predictive dissolution (fPD) testing to advance oral drug product development: an introduction to the US FDA funded ‘21st Century BA/BE’ project
Over the past decade, formulation predictive dissolution (fPD) testing has gained increasing attention. Another mindset is pushed forward where scientists in our field are more confident to explore the in vivo behavior of an oral drug product by performing predictive in vitro dissolution studies. Similarly, there is an increasing interest in the application of modern computational fluid dynamics (CFD) frameworks and high-performance computing platforms to study the local processes underlying absorption within the gastrointestinal (GI) tract. In that way, CFD and computing platforms both can inform future PBPK-based in silico frameworks and determine the GI-motility-driven hydrodynamic impac…
Toward Mechanistic Design of Surrogate Buffers for Dissolution Testing of pH-Dependent Drug Delivery Systems
The in vivo dissolution of enteric-coated (EC) products is often overestimated by compendial in vitro dissolution experiments. It is of great interest to mimic the in vivo conditions as closely as possible in vitro in order to predict the in vivo behavior of EC dosage forms. The reason behind this is the overly high buffering capacity of the common compendial buffers compared to the intestinal bicarbonate buffer. However, a bicarbonate-based buffer is technically difficult to handle due to the need for continuous sparging of the media with CO2 to maintain the desired buffer pH. Therefore, bicarbonate buffers are not commonly used in routine practice and a non-volatile alternative is of inte…
Hybrid Biopolymer and Lipid Nanoparticles with Improved Transfection Efficacy for mRNA
Cells 9(9), 2034 (1-19) (2020). doi:10.3390/cells9092034
Molecular insights into shellac film coats from different aqueous shellac salt solutions and effect on disintegration of enteric-coated soft gelatin capsules.
The purpose of this investigation was to study the effect of using different salts of shellac on the disintegration properties of shellac-based enteric coatings. In the last two decades, shellac has been increasingly used as an aqueous solution for enteric coating purposes, with the ammonium salt being the form typically used. Little investigation has been performed on using other salts, and therefore, this was the focus of our work. Enteric coatings, based on different shellac salts (ammonium, sodium, potassium and composite ammonium-sodium), were applied onto soft gelatin capsules. Disintegration testing of the coated soft gelatin capsules showed that alkali metal salts promote faster dis…
Mechanistic analysis and experimental verification of bicarbonate-controlled enteric coat dissolution: Potential in vivo implications
Enteric coatings have shown in vivo dissolution rates that are poorly predicted by traditional in vitro tests, with the in vivo dissolution being considerably slower than in vitro. To provide a more mechanistic understanding of this, the dependence of the release properties of various enteric-coated (EC) products on bulk pH and bicarbonate molarity was investigated. It was found that, at presumably in vivo-relevant values, the bicarbonate molarity is a more significant determinant of the dissolution profile than the bulk pH. The findings also indicate that this steep relationship between the dissolution of enteric coatings and bicarbonate molarity limits those coatings' performance in vivo.…
Hierarchical Mass Transfer Analysis of Drug Particle Dissolution, Highlighting the Hydrodynamics, pH, Particle Size, and Buffer Effects for the Dissolution of Ionizable and Nonionizable Drugs in a Compendial Dissolution Vessel
Dissolution is a crucial process for the oral delivery of drug products. Before being absorbed through epithelial cell membranes to reach the systemic circulation, drugs must first dissolve in the human gastrointestinal (GI) tract. In vivo and in vitro dissolutions are complex because of their dependency upon the drug physicochemical properties, drug product, and GI physiological properties. However, an understanding of this process is critical for the development of robust drug products. To enhance our understanding of in vivo and in vitro dissolutions, a hierarchical mass transfer (HMT) model was developed that considers the drug properties, GI fluid properties, and fluid hydrodynamics. T…
Improving Dissolution Behavior and Oral Absorption of Drugs with pH-Dependent Solubility Using pH Modifiers: A Physiologically Realistic Mass Transport Analysis
Orally dosed drugs must dissolve in the gastrointestinal (GI) tract before being absorbed through the epithelial cell membrane. In vivo drug dissolution depends on the GI tract's physiological conditions such as pH, residence time, luminal buffers, intestinal motility, and transit and drug properties under fed and fasting conditions (Paixao, P. et al. Mol. Pharm. 2018 and Bermejo, et al. M. Mol. Pharm. 2018). The dissolution of an ionizable drug may benefit from manipulating in vivo variables such as the environmental pH using pH-modifying agents incorporated into the dosage form. A successful example is the use of such agents for dissolution enhancement of BCS class IIb (high-permeability,…
Mass Transport Analysis of the Enhanced Buffer Capacity of the Bicarbonate-CO2 Buffer in a Phase-Heterogenous System: Physiological and Pharmaceutical Significance
The bicarbonate buffer capacity is usually considered in a phase-homogeneous system, at equilibrium, with no CO2 transfer between the liquid buffer phase and another phase. However, typically, an in vitro bicarbonate buffer-based system is a phase-heterogeneous system, as it entails continuously sparging (bubbling) the dissolution medium with CO2 in a gas mixture, at constant ratio, to maintain a constant partial pressure of CO2 (g) and CO2(aq) molarity at a prescribed value, with CO2 diffusing freely between the gas and the aqueous phases. The human gastrointestinal tract is also a phase-heterogeneous system, with CO2 diffusing across the mucosal membrane into the mesenteric arterial blood…
Unpredictable Performance of pH-Dependent Coatings Accentuates the Need for Improved Predictive in Vitro Test Systems.
First introduced in the second half of the 19th century, enteric coatings are commonly used to protect acid-labile drugs, reduce the risk of gastric side effects due to irritating drugs, or for local drug delivery to the lower gastrointestinal (GI) tract. The currently available enteric-coatings are based on pH-sensitive weakly acidic polymers. Despite the long history of their use, the causes behind their performance often being unpredictable have not been properly investigated with most of the attention being focused only on the gastric emptying. However, little attention has been given to the postgastric emptying disintegration and dissolution of these dosage forms. This lack of attentio…
In Vitro Evaluation of Enteric-Coated HPMC Capsules—Effect of Formulation Factors on Product Performance
A comparative study on different enteric-coated hard capsules was performed. The influence of different formulation factors like choice of enteric polymer, triethyl citrate (TEC) concentration (plasticizer), talc concentrations (anti-tacking agent), and different coating process parameters on the sealing performance of the capsule and the disintegration time were investigated. Furthermore, the influence of different disintegration test methods (with disc vs. without disc and 50 mM U.S. Pharmacopoeia (USP) buffer pH 6.8 vs. biopredictive 15 mM phosphate buffer pH 6.5) was evaluated. All formulations showed sufficient but not equivalent acid resistance when tested. Polymer type was the main f…
Effect of Calcium Ions on the Disintegration of Enteric-Coated Solid Dosage Forms.
To investigate the effect of calcium ions on the disintegration of enteric-coated dosage forms, disintegration testing was performed on enteric-coated aspirin tablets in the presence and absence of calcium in the test media. The results show that the presence of calcium ions retards the disintegration of enteric-coated dosage forms. This finding, which has not been reported in scientific literature, sheds light on the importance of conducting well-designed detailed investigations into the potential of calcium from dietary sources, calcium supplements, antacids, and/or phosphate binders affecting the absorption of drugs formulated into enteric-coated dosage forms. Moreover, it shows the nece…
Mass Transport Analysis of Bicarbonate Buffer: Effect of the CO2–H2CO3 Hydration–Dehydration Kinetics in the Fluid Boundary Layer and the Apparent Effective pKa Controlling Dissolution of Acids and Bases
The main buffering system influencing ionizable drug dissolution in the human intestinal fluid is bicarbonate-based; however, it is rarely used in routine pharmaceutical practice due to the volatility of dissolved CO2. The typical pharmaceutical buffers used fail to capture the unique aspects of the hydration-dehydration kinetics of the bicarbonate-CO2 system. In particular, CO2 is involved in a reversible interconversion with carbonic acid (H2CO3), which is the actual conjugate acid of the system, as follows CO2 + H2O ⇌ H2CO3. In contrast to ionization reactions, this interconversion does not equilibrate very rapidly compared to the diffusional processes through a typical fluid diffusion b…