(159c) Supercitical Fluids and Spray-Drying: Particles for Phamaceuticals

From 1985-2000, researchers in the Debenedetti group were among the first to demonstrate the use supercritical fluids (SCF) as a solvent or anti-solvent to generate micro-particles of drug molecules, polymers, and proteins with potential applications for drug delivery. These processes involved pressurization of a solution containing the desired molecule, and release of the solution through a nozzle into a miscible phase to form the micro-particles. Some of the findings and approach in this work can be seen in recent developments in spray-drying, a similar unit operation now commonly used in pharmaceutical industry. Advances in the applications of spray drying has enabled extremely low solubility molecules to be viable drug products. Recent work using spray-drying to generate 1) dispersions of amorphous active pharmaceutical ingredients within a polymer phase and 2) protein powders will be discussed.