Applications of bio-predictive dissolution tools for the development of solid oral dosage forms: current industry experience

Abstract

Development and optimization of orally administered drug products often require bio-predictive tools to help with informing formulation and manufacturing decisions. Reliable bio-predictive dissolution toolkits not only allow rational development of target formulations without having to conduct excessive in vivo studies but also help in detecting critical material attributes (CMAs), critical formulation variables (CFVs), or critical process parameters (CPPs) that could impact a drug’s in vivo performance. To provide early insights for scientists on the development of a bio-predictive method for drug product development, this review summarizes current phase-appropriate bio-predictive dissolution approaches applicable to address typical concerns on solubility-limited absorption, food effect, achlorhydria, development of extended-release formulation, clinically relevant specification, and biowaiver. The selection of an in vitro method which can capture the key rate-limiting step(s) of the in vivo dissolution and/or absorption is considered to have a better chance to produce a meaningful in vitro-in vivo correlation (IVIVC) or in vitro-in vivo relationship (IVIVR).

Keywords:

• Phase-appropriate
• bio-predictive
• dissolution
• IVIVC
• formulation
• modeling

Acknowledgement

The authors sincerely acknowledge Dr. Yihong Qiu (AbbVie Inc.) and Dr. Patrick J Marroum (AbbVie Inc.) for their valuable comments and suggestions.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).