A review of methods for solubility determination in biopharmaceutical drug characterization

Abstract

The significance of thermodynamic solubility in biopharmaceutical compound or drug characterization as well as the importance of having methods that accurately establish it have been extensively addressed. Nonetheless, its precise determination continues to remain a challenging task to accomplish. Even more so when the number of compounds to evaluate is high and the available amount of each compound is low, both of which are inevitable for the compound characterization during the drug development process. Except for the shake-flask method which is still considered as the ‘gold standard’ in obtaining thermodynamic data, it is currently difficult to say that another satisfactory model which is routinely used to determine thermodynamic solubility is being applied. Therefore, this review summarizes the various experimental approaches which are based on the classical shake flask method but have yet attempted to speed up the experimental process of obtaining such data more conveniently. The most important experimental features of these approaches are provided to the reader. Some advantages and disadvantages associated with each approach are also highlighted, consequently offering a resource to those looking for the most appropriate of the approaches that have already fared well at determining the biopharmaceutically relevant drug solubility.

Keywords:

• Biopharmaceutical drug solubility
• thermodynamic (equilibrium) solubility
• shake flask method
• high throughput
• miniaturized assays

Acknowledgement

This research was financially supported by Slovenian Research Agency (ARRS) [P1-0189]​.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.