Insight into the Manipulation Mechanism of Polymorphic Transformation by Polymers: A Case of Cimetidine

Employing polymer additives is an effective strategy to realize the manipulation of polymorphic transformation. However, the manipulation mechanism is still not clear, which limit the precise selection of polymeric excipients and the development of pharmaceutical formulations.

The solubility of cimetidine (CIM) in acetonitrile/water mixtures were measured. And the polymorphic transformation from CIM form A to form B with the addition of different polymers was monitored by Raman spectroscopy. Furthermore, the manipulation effect of polymers was determined based on the results of experiments and molecular simulations.

The solubility of form A is consistently higher than that of form B, which indicate that form B is the thermodynamically stable form within the examined temperature range. The presence of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) of a shorter chain length could have a stronger inhibitory effect on the phase transformation process of metastable form, whereas polyethylene glycol (PEG) had almost no impact. The nucleation kinetics experiments and molecular dynamic simulation results showed that only PVP molecules could significantly decrease the nucleation rate of CIM, due to the ability of reducing solute molecular diffusion and solute–solute molecular interaction. A combination of crystal growth rate measurements and calculations of the interaction energies between PVP and the crystal faces of CIM indicate that smaller molecular weight PVP can suppress crystal growth more effectively.

PVP K16-18 has more impact on the stabilization of CIM form A and inhibition of the phase transformation process. The manipulation mechanism of polymer additives in the polymorphic transformation of CIM was proposed.