Process Improves the Bioavailability of Active Ingredients

A process developed by university researchers and BASF that makes amorphous nanoparticles with increased solubility can improve the uptake of drugs in the human body, BASF reports.

The research team from BASF, Harvard, Yale and EPFL (Switzerland) developed a microfluidic nebulizer to create small nanoparticles from drugs that are first dissolved in a solvent and then exposed to a stream of air with at 600 meters per second, almost twice the speed of sound. The process can be applied to both organic and inorganic substances.

Without such processing, drug molecules would arrange in the form of crystals, which are difficult to dissolve, the researchers report. The increased solubility can result in higher uptake of active ingredients.

“The high-speed air flow enables fast evaporation of the solvent, which leaves no time for the molecules to arrange themselves in the form of a crystal. Molecules, therefore, arrange themselves randomly in an amorphous structure and are ten times easier to dissolve,” explained Dr. Christian Holtze, research manager at BASF.

Source: BASF