Dispatches from BIO 2016
Dissolving powders
(The experiment module with six mixing vials. Image credit: Zin Technologies)
Lilly’s Hard to Wet Surfaces experiment is currently slated to launch on July 16th, as part of a commercial cargo resupply services mission to the ISS.
The experiment will investigate how certain materials used in the pharmaceutical industry dissolve in water while in microgravity. Results from this experiment could help improve tablet design in order to improve dissolvability and drug delivery as well as drug design.
“We have found over the years that some powders do not dissolve well and this phenomena starts with the material sort of floating on top of the solution and only slowly becoming wet and then going into the mixture and dissolving,” said Savin, who described it as similar to scooping coco powder into milk.
“This is bad for pharmaceutical companies in a couple of ways,” he explained.
This first issue specifically concerns drug delivery: when a pill is ingested, it may just float on the liquid in the stomach and not readily dissolve, which impacts the time it takes for the pill to dissolve.
“The second space where this is an issue is when we scale up a big reaction and scoop in a large quantity of powder and it just floats on top and does not mix in to react right away,” explained Savin. “The reaction can take longer and will change as a result of the delay in going into solution.”
According to Savin, in both cases, the “float” has an impact on the way the material dissolves, thus researchers are looking to better understand this “float effect.”