Overview of polymorphism in pharmaceutical solids

ANYL 201

Harry G. Brittain, hbrittain@earthlink.net, Center for Pharmaceutical Physics, 10 Charles Road, Milford, NJ 08848
One extremely important area of solid-state pharmaceutics that continues to be of strong interest relates to the crystallographic properties of a given compound. The phenomena of multiple crystal forms of a compound that have the same empirical composition (i.e., polymorphism), or of other crystal forms that differ in their empirical compositions through the inclusion of solvent molecules (i.e., solvatomorphism), have strong implications in pharmaceutics as the different crystal forms of a chemical entity can exhibit differing solubilities, stabilities, or bioavailabilities. In this lecture, the origins of polymorphism and solvatomorphism will be discussed, and particular emphasis will be placed on achieving an understanding regarding the relative stability of different crystal forms.