Investigation and Prediction of Small Intestinal Precipitation of Poorly Soluble Drugs : a Study Involving in silico, in vitro and in vivo Assessment

• Main Author: Carlert, Sara
• Format: Doctoral Thesis
• Language: English
• Published: Uppsala universitet, Institutionen för farmaci 2012
• Subjects: gastrointestinal precipitation; crystallization; crystal nucleation; crystal growth; classical nucleation theory; poorly soluble drugs; drug absorption; biopharmaceutics classification system; in vitro/in vivo correlations (IVIVC); in silico prediction; human intestinal fluid; dog intestinal fluid; simulated intestinal fluid
• Online Access: http://urn.kb.se/resolve?urn=urn:nbn:se:uu:diva-178053; http://nbn-resolving.de/urn:isbn:978-91-554-8408-8

The main objectives of the present project were to increase the understanding of small intestinal precipitation of poorly soluble pharmaceutical drugs, investigate occurrence of crystalline small intestinal precipitation and effects of precipitation on absorption. The aim was to create and evaluate methods of predicting crystalline small intestinal drug precipitation using in vivo, in vitro and in silico models. In vivo small intestinal precipitation from highly supersaturated solutions of two weakly basic model drugs, AZD0865 and mebendazole, was investigated in humans and canine models. Potential precipitation of AZD0865 was investigated by examining dose dependent increases in human maximum plasma concentration and total exposure, which turned out to be dose linear over the range investigated, indicating no significant in vivo precipitation. The small intestinal precipitation of mebendazole was investigated from drug concentrations and amount of solid drug present in dog jejunum as well as through the bioavailability after direct duodenal administration in dogs. It was concluded that mebendazole small intestinal precipitation was limited, and that intestinal supersaturation was measurable for up to 90 minutes. In vitro precipitation methods utilizing simulated or real fasted gastric and intestinal fluids were developed in order to simulate the in vivo precipitation rate. The methods overpredicted in vivo precipitation when absorption of drug was not simulated. An in vitro-in silico approach was therefore developed, where the in vitro method was used for determining the interfacial tension (γ), necessary for describing crystallization in Classical Nucleation Theory (CNT). CNT was evaluated using a third model drug, bicalutamide, and could successfully describe different parts of the crystallization process of the drug. CNT was then integrated into an in silico absorption model. The in vivo precipitation results of AZD0865 and mebendazole were well predicted by the model, but only by allowing the fundamental constant γ to vary with concentration. Thus, the in vitro-in silico approach could be used for small intestinal precipitation prediction if the in vitro concentration closely matched in vivo small intestinal concentrations.