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A BRIEF OVERVIEW ON COCRYSTALS AND THEIR PHARMACEUTICAL APPLICATIONS

MANOJ KUMAR SARANGI

Assistant Professor, Department of Pharmacy, Sardar Bhagwan Singh Post graduate Institute of Biomedical Sciences and Research, Balawala, Dehradun, Uttarakhand, India.

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Cocrystals are the three dimensional arrangement of molecular complexes containing therapeutic moieties. They represent a special class of pharmaceuticals with challenging physicochemical properties. This article presents the significance and challenges which are deeply related with the synthesis and design of pharmaceutical cocrystals. The process of cocrystallization is basically dealing with a challenge for modification of physical properties like solubility, physicochemical stability etc. of active pharmaceutical ingredients in comparison to polymorphs, and pseudo polymorphs. Several synthetic methods for development of cocrystals like solid-state grinding and solvent-drop grinding, evaporation, cooling and reaction crystallization methods are discussed. The study also includes several case studies associated with the marketed samples and the future prospect of the technique.