Thermo Electron Corp.
Patricia Henson, Raman Product Manager
In order to better understand solid state compounds that are candidates for new drugs, pharmaceutical companies are employing new technologies in the screening of hundreds of compounds on a daily basis. An important factor in solid state drug forms is polymorphism—a solid-state phenomenon whereby an element or compound can exist in more than one crystalline form.
Polymorphs affect pharmacologically relevant properties, such as bioavailability, dissolution and stability, drug manufacturability and processing, and are used to legally define a compound as a unique, patentable composition. Therefore, pharmaceutical companies are under considerable pressure perform exhaustive compound screening to identify and protect all possible forms early in the drug discovery and development process.
Raman spectroscopy has long been regarded as an excellent technique for identifying polymorphs, however until recently, set-up, calibration and maintenance of the instrument excluded it from high throughput applications. Developments in modern Raman instrumentation, starting with the use of laser and then the introduction of sensitive charge-coupled device (CCD) cameras, high-throughput filters, and improved software have made Raman a useful tool for many types of routine analysis.
Because samples require no special handling, and precise stage automation and the ability to sample 96-well plates, Raman spectroscopy is poised to be a workhorse technique in high throughput crystallization studies.
While data collection has been streamlined to handling hundreds of well containing various chemical mixtures, analyzing the hundreds of spectra collected each hour becomes the new bottleneck. Thermo Electron Corporation has developed new software algorithms that not only facilitate high throughput data collection, but also present clearly understood analytical results by rapidly grouping known and unknown crystalline forms. Early adopters report that processes that would have required hours of manual spectra-by-spectra analysis can now be done automatically in a matter of minutes.
Thermo Electron Corp.
Thermo Electron
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