Determination of the polymorphic form of an active pharmaceutical ingredient (API) in a suspension could be really challenging because of the water phase and the low concentration of the API in this formulation. Posaconazole is an antifungal drug available also as an oral suspension. The aim of this study was to develop a sample-preparation method for polymorphic identification of the dispersed API by increasing the concentration of the API but with no compromise of polymorph stability. For this purpose, filtration, drying and centrifugation were tested for separating the API from the suspending medium. Centrifugation was selected because it succeeded in separating Posaconazole API with no polymorph transformation during the process. During this study, it was found that Posaconazole in oral suspensions is Form-S. However, when slower scanning rates were used for acquiring an XRPD pattern with better signal/noise ratio, Posaconazole was converted to Form I due to water loss. In order to protect the sample from conversion, different approaches were tested to secure an airtight sample including a commercially available XRPD sample holder with a dome-like transparent cap, standard polymethylmethacrylate (PMMA) sample holders covered with Mylar film, transparent pressure-sensitive tape and a transparent food membrane. Only usage of the transparent food membrane was found to protect the API from conversion for a period of at least two weeks and resulted in a Posaconazole Form-S XRPD pattern with no artificial peaks.
Keywords: XRPD; centrifugation; form-S; oral suspension; polymorphism; posaconazole; sample preparation.