Near infra red spectroscopy as a multivariate process analytical tool for predicting pharmaceutical co-crystal concentration.

The use of near infra red spectroscopy to predict the concentration of two pharmaceutical co-crystals; 1:1 ibuprofen-nicotinamide (IBU-NIC) and 1:1 carbamazepine-nicotinamide (CBZ-NIC) has been evaluated. A partial least squares (PLS) regression model was developed for both co-crystal pairs using sets of standard samples to create calibration and validation data sets with which to build and validate the models. Parameters such as the root mean square error of calibration (RMSEC), root mean square error of prediction (RMSEP) and correlation coefficient were used to assess the accuracy and linearity of the models. Accurate PLS regression models were created for both co-crystal pairs which can be used to predict the co-crystal concentration in a powder mixture of the co-crystal and the active pharmaceutical ingredient (API). The IBU-NIC model had smaller errors than the CBZ-NIC model, possibly due to the complex CBZ-NIC spectra which could reflect the different arrangement of hydrogen bonding associated with the co-crystal compared to the IBU-NIC co-crystal. These results suggest that NIR spectroscopy can be used as a PAT tool during a variety of pharmaceutical co-crystal manufacturing methods and the presented data will facilitate future offline and in-line NIR studies involving pharmaceutical co-crystals.