Numerical Tools for Predicting Drug Dissolution Profiles

Project SummaryNumerical Tools for Predicting Drug Dissolution Profiles This STTR Phase II proposal describes the development of a modeling framework that combines a mesoscopic model for hydrodynamics with disintegration and dissolution kinetic models in order to accurately describe the dissolution behavior of tabletsThe complexities of the tablet dissolution problem have led to the development of empirical methodologies being the widespread practice in the pharmaceutical industryHoweverbecause of a lack of mechanistic information the process has to be repeated for each new formulationand no insights can be gained from the testThis process adds to the cost and increases the time to market for new drugsOur approach builds on our Phase I approachwhere we used the Lattice Boltzmann modeland developed an innovative modular approach of incorporating the detailed dissolution kinetics such that we could study tablet dissolutionIn this effortwe plan to include more realistic mechanisms such as disintegration into our frameworkWe will include details about the internal structure of the tabletits porositytortuosityand distribution of componentsLiquid uptake will be modeled by including capillary effectsand material propertiessuch as wettabilities and surface energies will be included in our modelThe goal is to develop a model that can be used by pharmaceutical researchers and formulation scientistssuch that they can identify potential problems in tablet formulation