Improvement of dissolution property of poorly water-soluble drug by supercritical freeze granulation.

The dissolution property of the poorly water-soluble drug, flurbiprofen (FP) was improved by a novel supercritical freeze granulation using supercritical carbon dioxide. Supercritical freeze granulation was defined as a production method of the granulated substances by using the dry ice to generate intentionally for the rapid atomization of the supercritical carbon dioxide to the atmospheric pressure. This process utilized a rapid expansion of supercritical solutions (RESS) process with the mixture of the drug and lactose. In the supercritical freeze granulation, needle-like FP fine particles were obtained which adhered to the surface of lactose particles, which did not dissolve in supercritical carbon dioxide. The number of FP particles that adhered to the surface of particles decreased with an increase in the ratio of lactose added, leading to markedly improve the dissolution rate. This improvement was caused not only by the increase in the specific surface area but also the improvement of the dispersibility of FP in water. It is thus concluded that the supercritical freeze granulation is a useful technique to improve the dissolution property of the poorly water-soluble flurbiprofen.