Leeds: Monitoring drug crystals as they form

Licensing opportunity | Development opportunity

Scientists at Leeds University, UK, are looking for industry partners to help further develop a technique for controlling the crystalline forms of drugs, an attribute that is crucial both to cost and product safety.

Most drug compounds are crystalline and while their structure can affect both properties and performance, changes to structures are often caused by undetected fluctuations in the production process.

“Different solid forms of the same drug can have completely different properties,” says Robert Hammond of the university’s Faculty of Engineering, who led the research. “Drug molecules are becoming increasingly complex, and the challenges involved in processing them means that it is not always possible to successfully produce the desired form reliably. We’re now able to look at crystals as they are forming in a reactor, something that has never been done before.”

The new technology identifies and monitors changes in crystal structures online, ensuring production of the desired drug compounds. The system has been developed in collaboration with a commercial partner, Bede X-Ray Metrology, using powder X-ray diffraction to monitor crystal structures.

“There’s enormous commercial potential for this technology, for example it could be developed to work at manufacturing plant scales and can be applied to specialty chemical industries as well,” says Hammond. “We’re interested in talking to pharmaceutical and specialty chemical companies that can help us drive this forward.”