Relationship between the Structure and Properties of Pharmaceutical Crystals

Abstract

The majority of drug products are solid dosage forms, most of which contain the drug substance in the crystalline state. This review considers the forces responsible for crystal packing, the various types of pharmaceutical crystals, and the methods used to determine the structure of pharmaceutical crystals. These topics provide background for the main thrust, which focuses on the importance of studying the structure of pharmaceutical crystals with particular stress on phase changes of crystal forms of drugs during pharmaceutical processing and implications of different solid forms of drugs on its mechanical properties. The present review does not consider pharmaceutical co-crystals, which could be the subject of another review.

Keywords

• mechanical properties
• hydrates/solvates
• amorphous
• clathrates
• crystal-structure
• processing
• polymorphism
• physicochemical properties
• x-ray powder diffractometry
• solid state