Pharmaceuticals and Intermediates in the Dortmund Data Bank

Pharmaceuticals are valuable, complex and mostly expensive components used in medicine, for cosmetics, and in agriculture for crops and breeding.

They can be obtained from natural materials or from chemical or biochemical synthesis. Since pharmaceuticals must be extremely pure before being traded, sold and applied the purification process is difficult, costly, and time-consuming.

 

Purification, Solvent Selection

Most production and purification steps require the use of solvents (e.g solvent crystallization). A great challenge is the selection of the ideal or, at least, sufficiently suitable solvent for this processes.

 

Water Solubility

Even if the water solubility plays a minor role during the production and purification it is the most important property for the appliance of pharmaceuticals since most biological transport systems rely on water-like blood and lymph.

 

Available Data

The Dortmund Data Bank can help in selecting suitable solvents. The DDB contains solid-liquid equilibria data (solubilities) and several other properties for a large variety of pharmaceuticals and pharmaceutical intermediates.