Computer-Aided formulation design for pharmaceutical drug product development, part 01: Materials exploration through a visualization tool

An interactive tool has been developed to help design oral solid dosage form formulations. The tool enables quantitative explorations and comparisons of physical, bulk, and mechanical properties, and takes into account functional characteristics as well. In this manner, comparisons and clustering of both excipients and APIs can be carried out. These comparisons enable the generation of alternatives as well as surrogate identification, so as to spare resources and material.

Multiple data sources were merged to create a “joint” data table with all relevant properties. Four main workflow activities are supported: Explore Materials, Search Similar APIs, Search Similar Excipients and Search Material Clusters.

Multi-dimensional filtering can be superimposed to each functionality. Suggested visualizations are made particularly accessible by providing them as “standard plots”.

The underlying philosophy is to empower formulation scientists to explore options, rather than prescribe decisions on exclusively mathematical grounds. The tool described here is the first step towards a holistic optimization incorporating predictions of mixture properties. Methodology of use is illustrated through three material selection application examples.