Advanced analytical techniques can provide unique insight into the composition and properties of pharmaceutical formulations. In particular, both structural and mobility information can be obtained about the formulations, but the challenge is to relate that information to functional properties such as physical and chemical stability, dissolution rate, and processing parameters. Solid-state NMR spectroscopy is a powerful technique to study polymorphism, form changes upon processing, the presence of small amounts of amorphous drug in crystalline solids (for chemical/physical stability), and small amounts of crystalline drug in amorphous solid dispersions (for physical stability). Solid-state NMR relaxation times have been used to measure particle size, crystal defects, and chemical impurities in crystalline materials. In addition, relaxation times have been used to determine the phase separation of amorphous formulations. Finally, mobility, phase separation, and microenvironment acidity has been studied to predict stability in large-molecule formulations.
Dr. Eric J. Munson
Professor and Head Dane O. Kildsig Chair in Industrial and Physical Pharmacy
Eric Munson is currently the Dane O. Kildsig Chair and Head of the Department of Industrial and Physical Pharmacy at Purdue University. He received his B.A. degree from Augustana College in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, in 1987. After studying one year in Munich, Germany, on a Fulbright Fellowship, he received his Ph.D. in 1993 from Texas A&M University, and was a postdoctoral fellow at the University of California, Berkeley in 1994. He was in the Chemistry Department at the University of Minnesota before moving in 2001 to the Pharmaceutical Chemistry Department at the University of Kansas, to the Pharmaceutical Sciences Department at the University of Kentucky in 2010, where he was the Patrick DeLuca Endowed Professor in Pharmaceutical Technology. In 2018 he moved to Purdue University to become the Dane O. Kildsig Chair and Head of the Industrial and Physical Pharmacy Department. His research program is focused on the characterization of pharmaceutical solids using a variety of analytical techniques, with an emphasis on solid-state NMR spectroscopy. Dr. Munson is a coinventor on three patents and has published more than 100 research, review, and book chapters.