In situ monitoring of cocrystals in formulation development using low-frequency Raman spectroscopy

In recent years, to guarantee a quality-by-design approach to the development of pharmaceutical products, it is important to identify properties of raw materials and excipients in order to determine critical process parameters and critical quality attributes. Feedback obtained from real-time analyses using various process analytical technology (PAT) tools has been actively investigated. In this study, in situ monitoring using low-frequency (LF) Raman spectroscopy (10-200 cm^-1), which may have higher discriminative ability among polymorphs than near-infrared spectroscopy and conventional Raman spectroscopy (200-1800 cm^-1), was investigated as a possible application to PAT. This is because LF-Raman spectroscopy obtains information about intermolecular and/or lattice vibrations in the solid state. The monitoring results obtained from Furosemide/Nicotinamide cocrystal indicate that LF-Raman spectroscopy is applicable to in situ monitoring of suspension and fluidized bed granulation processes, and is an effective technique as a PAT tool to detect the conversion risk of cocrystals. LF-Raman spectroscopy is also used as a PAT tool to monitor reactions, crystallizations, and manufacturing processes of drug substances and products. In addition, a sequence of conversion behaviors of Furosemide/Nicotinamide cocrystals was determined by performing in situ monitoring for the first time.