Confocal Raman microscopy in pharmaceutical development

Abstract

There is a wide range of applications of confocal Raman microscopy in pharmaceutical development. It is a powerful tool to probe the distribution of components within a formulation, to characterize homogeneity of pharmaceutical samples, to determine solid state of drug substances and excipients and to characterize contaminations and foreign particulates. The information obtained by confocal Raman microscopy is extremely useful, sometimes even crucial, for drug substance design, for the development of solid and liquid formulations, as a tool for process analytics and for patent infringements and counterfeit analysis. In this chapter, those aspects and applications will be presented, focusing on solid drug formulations. This chapter will also reveal the advantages and demonstrate the synergies of Raman mapping as compared to similar imaging methods such as SEM/EDX, NIR and MIR imaging. © 2010 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg.