Solubility Enhancement

As poor solubility becomes an increasingly common hurdle in modern drug pipelines, we’ve built a powerful toolkit of advanced technologies and formulation strategies to tackle even the toughest solubility challenges. For over 30 years, we’ve been a trusted leader in enhancing solubility for small molecule therapeutics—helping our partners unlock the full potential of their compounds.

Spray drying is a proven method of improving the solubility and bioavailability of drug candidates. 

Spray drying involves dissolving a drug in an organic solvent in the presence of a polymer. The resulting solution is then spray dried to form a dispersion, also called a spray-dried dispersion (SDD). 

Developed SDDs can be administered either as powder-in-bottle reconstitution prior to dosing or formulated as a powder-in-capsule or tablet presentation.

Quotient Sciences can develop and manufacture SDDs to overcome poor drug solubility and delivery challenges. We've advanced dozens of SDD formulations into clinical studies, and can develop SDDs using both aqueous and solvent-based processing. 

Lipid-based drug delivery systems and complexes are increasingly important tools to improve the oral bioavailability of poorly soluble drugs. 

Lipid-based solubility enhancement developed from the observation that many poorly water-soluble drugs see an improvement in bioavailability when administered with a fat-rich meal; essentially the stimulation of biliary secretion can promote drug solubilization within the GI tract. 

Lipidic vehicles are designed to mimic this effect by pre-dissolving the drug within an appropriate lipid structure, bypassing the need for the poorly soluble, crystalline material to dissolve in situ. 

Similarly, cyclodextrin drug-inclusion complexes act to improve aqueous solubility by essentially shielding the hydrophobic drug within an interior cavity of the hydrophilic cyclodextrin, thus enabling the entire complex to drive improved oral bioavailability. 

Quotient Sciences can help you screen for a range of lipidic and complexation vehicles including self-emulsifying drug delivery systems, self-microemulsifying drug delivery systems, single oil phases and cyclodextrins. Your formulations are then characterized in vitro, prior to progression into the clinic.

Conventional formulation strategies are often insufficient to achieve acceptable levels of solubility. Our expertise in formulation development, applied through our leading platform for drug development, Quotient Sciences Translational Pharmaceutics®, can help you achieve clinical success even when it comes to the most challenging molecules.

Read our recent whitepaper to see why the Translational Pharmaceutics® platform is a proven choice for enhancing poorly soluble drugs.