A strategy for producing predicted polymorphs: catemeric carbamazepine form V

Area of Science:

• Solid-state chemistry
• Crystallography
• Materials science

Background:

• Carbamazepine is an important pharmaceutical with various known polymorphs.
• Selective synthesis of specific polymorphs remains a challenge in pharmaceutical development.
• Understanding polymorph formation is crucial for drug efficacy and stability.

Purpose of the Study:

• To achieve the selective formation of the first catemeric polymorph of carbamazepine (form V).
• To explore a novel templating approach for controlling crystal growth.
• To investigate the use of computational methods in polymorph engineering.

Main Methods:

• Vapor phase growth of carbamazepine.
• Templating crystal growth using dihydrocarbamazepine form II as a surface.
• Computationally assisted design and analysis of the process.

Main Results:

• Successfully and selectively synthesized carbamazepine form V, the first catemeric polymorph.
• Demonstrated the efficacy of vapor phase templating for polymorph control.
• Validated the computational approach for predicting and guiding crystal formation.

Conclusions:

• The developed templating method enables precise control over carbamazepine polymorph formation.
• Computational assistance is a powerful tool for designing targeted crystallization processes.
• This work opens new avenues for the rational design of pharmaceutical crystalline forms.