Particle Engineering as Applied to Pharmaceutical Formulations

This session seeks papers whose scope is within the broadly defined area of Particle Engineering as applied to Pharmaceutical Systems. Pharmaceutical dosage forms entail the design of active pharmaceutical ingredients (APIs) and excipients in such a way to achieve controllable, reproducible, and effective functional responses (release rate, location of delivery, taste-masking, etc.) of the APIs in human body. These functional responses greatly depend on the dosage form and the way API and excipient particles are integrated into the superstructure of the dosage form. Particle engineering offers tools and methodologies, both experimental and numerical, to design the structure of particles so that the desired responses of the API are enhanced significantly in the dosage form. Particles and their surfaces can be designed and tailored in many different processes via different formulation approaches. Both novel formulations and the manufacturing processes that yield engineered particles are of interest to this session, as well as scientific approaches that relate particle formation, structure and functional performance. Papers can be experimental in nature, while fundamental theoretical or modeling works (e.g. based on DEM, FEM or CFD) providing insight into the formation and behavior of the particles in the dosage form are also welcome.