Solid-State Quantification of Cocrystals in Pharmaceutical Tablets Using Transmission Low-Frequency Raman Spectroscopy

Anal Chem. 2019 Nov 5;91(21):13427-13432. doi: 10.1021/acs.analchem.9b01895. Epub 2019 Oct 10.

Abstract

To enable the continuous production of cocrystal-containing pharmaceutical tablets, guaranteeing the cocrystal content of the final pharmaceutical tablets in the solid state is critical. This study demonstrates the quantification of caffeine-glutaric acid cocrystals in model tablets using transmission low-frequency Raman spectroscopy. Although distinguishing between cocrystals and raw materials using conventional Raman spectroscopy is difficult, the use of low-frequency Raman spectroscopy enables the discrimination of cocrystals and raw materials. Low-frequency Raman spectra were analyzed by the partial least-squares method (PLS) to obtain the predicted contents in the model tablets. To evaluate the quantitative ability of this method, the root means square error of cross-validation (RMSECV) was determined by comparing the actual concentration and predicted content with a calibration curve. For cocrystal-containing tablets, the quantitative ability of the transmission mode (RMSECV = 2.06- 3.17) was 13.4-31.4% higher than that of the backscattering mode (RMSECV= 2.37- 3.91). The coexistence of raw crystalline materials did not affect the quantitative ability for cocrystals.

Publication types

  • Research Support, Non-U.S. Gov't

MeSH terms

  • Caffeine / chemistry*
  • Crystallization
  • Glutarates / chemistry*
  • Molecular Structure
  • Spectrum Analysis, Raman*
  • Tablets / chemistry*

Substances

  • Glutarates
  • Tablets
  • Caffeine
  • glutaric acid