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Updated: Oct 2, 2025

Solubility of Hydrophobic Compounds in Aqueous Solution Using Combinations of Self-assembling Peptide and Amino Acid
Published on: September 20, 2017
Recent advances in techniques for enhancing the solubility of hydrophobic drugs
Zijin Xu1, Susu Lin1, Qiaoqiao Li1
1College of Pharmaceutical Sciences, Zhejiang University of Technology, Hangzhou, China.
Abstract:
Numerous hydrophobic compounds are important ingredients for drug discovery and development. Hydrophobicity has been a major hurdle limiting the therapeutic efficacy of drugs. Drugs with low solubility are biopharmaceutically classified as class II and class IV drugs. Other challenges facing the pharmaceutical industry include low bioavailability, poor dissolution and erratic absorption of various compounds. In recent years, several technologies and methods have been developed to improve the solubility of drugs, meanwhile various mechanisms of improving solubility of compounds have been proposed. This review explores recent advances and techniques used to enhance solubility of lipophilic or low-solublility drugs. We summarize several strategies, such as rotor stator colloid mill, jet mill, ball mill, spray drying, hot melt extrusion, supercritical fluid and structural modification, including salt formation, and co-crystallization.
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