Application

  • The development and characterization of drug formulations, delivery systems, and manufacturing processes are crucial for ensuring the efficacy, safety, and quality of medications.
  • Pharmaceutical formulations are often too dynamic, too soft, or too large in molecular weight to be crystalized and in some cases too thick or too dense for electron microscopy. The molecular subunits of the large assemblies are often too small for optical microscopy. Hence, in many cases, X-ray scattering is the best method to characterize them.
  • X-ray scattering techniques have emerged as powerful tools for investigating the structural properties of pharmaceutical materials at various length scales. These techniques provide valuable insights into the molecular arrangement, particle size, shape, and interactions within drug formulations, enabling researchers to optimize drug design and manufacturing processes.
  • However, the current landscape of X-ray scattering analysis tools lacks tailored solutions specifically designed for the unique requirements of the pharmaceutical industry. The unmet need lies in the development of integrative, user-friendly, and application-specific software packages that streamline data acquisition, processing, and interpretation for pharmaceutical researchers.

Our Innovation

  • We developed an integrative X-ray scattering analysis tool, tailored for characterizing a wide range of pharmaceutical formulations, required for development, regulatory approval, and quality control.
  • Our state-of-the-art X-ray scattering experimental analysis tools enable the investigation of the structure and dynamics of macromolecular complexes in solution, including protein-complexes, virus-like particles, and lipid-based formulations, in their natural environment and dynamic states, and when interacting with drugs, osmolytes, or other additives.
  • We also developed a biochemical assays and measurement protocols to isolate the contribution of coexisting structures or components. Our modern X-ray lab equipment provides new opportunities to obtain X-ray scattering data at significantly high quality and resolution.
  • Moreover, our lab has developed a groundbreaking X-ray data analysis software called D+, computing the scattering curves from any complex structure in solution by hierarchically docking atomic and/or geometric models. D+ was integrated with all-atom molecular dynamic simulations, course-grained Brownian dynamic simulations, graph theory, Monte Carlo simulations, thermodynamic and kinetic theories of macromolecular assemblies, or maximum information entropy analysis. This set of powerful tools enables the analysis of steady-state and time-resolved X-ray scattering data from a wide range of static and dynamic molecular assemblies.

Advantages

  • Shorten the time to market
  • Provide means to test product stability
  • Provide a very accurate quality control technology, increase safety and reliability
  • Obtain regulatory approval more easily.
  • Very accurate product fingerprint, which reduces the development cost and increase the quality and the safety of products.
  • Our technology can simulate any type of complex structure (liposomes, drug-loaded liposomes, protein shells, etc.), taking into account any structural modifications owing to experimental conditions.
  • Efficient generation of advanced models, suitable for various pharmaceutical formulations. For example, atomic models of drug-loaded liposomes can be generated based on lipid composition, the encapsulated drug, and the solution conditions and include the association and organization principles of the various components, taking into account intermolecular interactions and solution conditions. These models can be tested and refined against systematic X-ray scattering measurements, accumulated using modeling-orientated protocols. This technology resolves and refines the structure of complex formulations accurately, efficiently, and at an affordable cost.

Opportunity

  • X-ray lab equipment companies like Rikagu or Xenocs, for example, are our potential collaborators. They could adjust our technology to their needs and include it in their analysis software packages. The technology may also help them sell more software and equipment to the pharma industry.
  • We also provide services to companies: D+ software has been used already by our lab to analyze X-ray scattering data of products of several pharma companies (for example, Lipocure, Merck, Innocan Pharma, Moebius Medical, Liposphere, Perimondo, or Synergio).