Abstract
Nowadays, many commercial drugs have poor solubility and bioavailability. Cocrystals are formulated to modulate active pharmaceutical ingredients’ properties with improved solubility, dissolution, and bioavailability compared to their pristine individual components in the pharmaceutical industry. Nano-cocrystals, crystals in the nano range, can further enhance these properties because of not only the cocrystal structure, but also the large surface to volume ratio of nanocrystals. Even though there are many studies on cocrystals, the research of pharmaceutical nano-cocrystals is still in the initial stage. Thus, it is necessary to conduct a systematic study on pharmaceutical nano-cocrystals. In this review, the possible preparation approaches of nano-cocrystals have been reported. To have a comprehensive understanding of nano-cocrystals, some analytical techniques and characterizations will be discussed in detail. In addition, the feasible therapeutic application of nano-cocrystals will be presented. This work is expected to provide guidance to develop new nano-cocrystals with commercial value in the pharmaceutical industry.
Highlights
Pharmaceutical nano-cocrystals have been used as a novel approach to improve the solubility, stability and bioavailability of drugs
Few studies have been reported on pharmaceutical nano-cocrystals, especially a lack of systematic studies on the preparation and characterization of pharmaceutical nano-cocrystals
This review comprehensively introduced common preparation methods of nano-cocrystals, and discussed the characterization technologies used to analyze the nano-cocrystals in detail
Summary
Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations. Many pharmaceutical companies and scientists are endeavoring to develop novel drugs with good solubility, dissolution rate, mechanical properties, hygroscopicity, optimal physical stability and chemical stability. It is a fact that approximately 60% of commercial drugs have poor aqueous solubility issues [1] Such difficulty is a major driving force for scientists to pursue approaches for improving the pharmaceutical and biological properties of drug products. Research has shown that drug molecules of cocrystals display 4–20 times improvement in solubility [2]. Many efforts have been devoted to study the improvement of the mechanical and pharmaceutical properties of poorly soluble drugs in past decades. Prospects will be proposed to provide guidance for the development of nano-cocrystals with specific and desired pharmaceutical properties in the near future
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