Midterm #1 Flashcards
(189 cards)
Intro to Drugs:
Definition: Dosage Form
Is a pharmaceutical delivery system that incorporates an active drug ingredient(s) along with excipients to
- ensure accurate dosing
- protect drug integrity
- prevent contamination
- improve clinical effectiveness
- afford a means of identification of strength of dose
Packaging is an integral part of the dosage form.
Intro to Drugs:
Definition: Pharmaceutics
Is the science discipline concerned with the formulation, manufacture, quality and effectiveness of pharmaceutical dosage forms.
Intro to Drugs:
Drug Substance Sources
- Chemical synthesis (most drugs)
- Plants and herbs, e.g., morphine from opium poppy, Papaver somniferum, artemisinin agent against malaria from A**rtemisia annua, St. Johns wort (Hypericum perforatum) extract
- Animals, e.g., insulin from pancreas of pigs
- Fish, e.g., cod liver oil-omga-1-fatty acids, Vitamins A and D
- Microorganisms, e.g., penicillin from *Penicillium *fungi
- Biotechnology, e.g., insulin, growth hormone
Intro to Drugs:
Drug Substance Chemical Forms
- Small organic molecules (MW < 800 Daltons)
- Peptides, polypeptides, proteins, antibodies
- MicroRNA molecules for RNA interference (e.g., siRNAs)
- DNA vaccines
Intro to Drugs:
Drug Substance Physical Forms
- Solids (most small molecule drugs)
- Liquids e.g., cyclosporine
- Gases, e.g., volatile anesthetics
Intro to Drugs:
Drug Formulation Requirements: Overview
- Uniformly precise drug
- Stability
- Prevent microbial contamination
- Ameliorate taste problem
- Appearance and Identification
- Enhance clinical effectiveness
Intro to Drugs:
Formulation Requirements: Stability
-How keep stable?
- Avoid degredation of drug ingredient during stoarge and use by preventing exposure to moisture (blister pack, coated tablets) or oxygen (sealed ampules)
- Additives to prevent protein aggregation with parenteral formulations of protein pharmacuticals
Intro to Drugs:
Formulation Requirements: Prevent Microbial Contamination
- Preservatives to prevent microbial contamination of oral, liquid, topical and opthalmic formulations
Intro to Drugs:
Formulation Requirements: Ameliorate Taste Problems
- Tablet coating or encapsulation to avoid drug contacting taste buds
- Flavoring of liquid formulations to mask taste
Intro to Drugs:
Formulation Requirements: Apperance and Identification
- Size, shape, color and imprinting give oral medications unique look and feel that allows easy identification by patients, avoid mix up error
Intro to Drugs:
Formulation Requirements: Enhance Clinical Effectiveness
- Micronization or nanoparticles to enhance bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs
- Enteric-coating (polymer barrier) to minimize drug degradation in gastric secretion or minimize gastric irritation, e.g., erthromycin
- Slow release oral dosage forms or intramuscular injections to prolong drug action
- Single-unit packaging for unit dose dispensing to minimize medication errors or bacterial and viral contamination; compliance packaging (oral contraceptive)
Intro to Drugs:
Pre-Formulation Studies
- The physical and chemical characteristics of the active drug ingredient(s) must be fully characterized (pre-formulation studies) in order to design a clinically effective pharmaceutical formulation.
Intro to Drugs:
Pre-Formulation Studies: Basic Physiochemical Characteristics
- Solid phase characteristics: melting point, crystallinity (polymorphism)
- Something can exist in multiple crystal forms
- Solution chemistry: water solubility, dissolution rate, acid-base ionization (pKa), colligative properties
- Lipid bilayer cell membrane permeability, partition coefficient (e.g., LogP value)
Intro to Drugs:
Routes of Administration: Table

Intro to Drugs:
PCEUT 531 Roadmap

Solutions & Solubility:
Pharmaceutical Significance: Activity
- Solid Drug –> Dissolution –> Drug in Solution–>Permeation–>Drug in Blood
- Release of active drug from the solid dosage form via disintegration and dissoluiton
- Following release, drug molecules crosses the gastrointestinal mucosa vaia diffusion or mediated transport
- Drug must dissolve before it can be absorbed. Only drug in solubilized form (molecularly dispersed) can effectibely penetrate across membrane barriers (e.g., gastrointestinal mucosa) and be absorbed into the systemic circulation.
- Drug absorption from an oral solution is usually more rapid and complete than a solid dosage form (e.g., tablet)
- Gut wall=1 layer of entrocytes

Solutions & Solubility:
Pharmaceutical Significance: Practicality
- Preparation of pharmaceutical solution is generally much easier than that of other dosage forms such as tablets, capsules and emulsions
Solutions & Solubility:
Pharmaceutical Significance: Aids formulation
- Note that not all drugs are easily soluble
- In fact, many drugs have low solubility
- General expressions of relative solubility of drugs defined in the USP
- In g/mL
- The knowledge of solution and solubility aids the preparation of pharmaceutical solutions.
- Ex: how to increase drug solubilty and thus drug dissolution rate from a solid dosage form

Solutions & Solubility
Pharmaceutical Significance: Vehicle and Drug Compatibilities
- The knowledge of solution and solubility hleps predict vehicle and drug incompatibilities
Solutions & Solubility
Definitions: Solutions
- A solution is a homogenous mixture of two or more substances (molecular dispersion).
- Ex: surcorse dissolved in waster
- H2PO4 dissolved in water
- One component is called “solvent” (ex: water) and the others are “solute”
- Note: Most of the pharmaceutical solutions are aqueous solutions because the majority of biochemical reations occur in an aqueous environment.
Solutions & Solubility:
Solutions: Colligative Properties
- osmotic pressure, lowering of vapor pressure, depression of freezing point, elevation of boiling point
- Depend ONLY on the number of particles (solute or drug molecules) in a solution.
Solutions & Solubilities:
Solutions: Additive Properties
- Depend on the total contribution of atoms in the molecules (ex: MW) or the sum of properties of the contituents (ex: mass of a solution)
- Ex: the total mass of a solution containing A and B= mass of A + mass of B
Solutions & Solubilities:
Solutions: Constitutive Properties
- Depend on the arrangment, the number and kind of atoms within the molecule
- Ex: the refraction of light and electric properties
- Not discussed any further
Solutions & Solubility:
Units of Solubility
- Overall definition
- Concentration units
- (quantity of solute)/quantity of Solvent or solute












